Tasnim – Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said the country has completely been exempted from a resolution by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to reduce oil production.


Speaking to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) on Thursday night, Zanganeh shrugged off the issue that Iran’s exemption from the OPEC resolution on oil cuts has not been mentioned in the press release of the 5th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting held in Vienna, Austria, last Friday.

In the resolution, the OPEC secretary general and the chairman have been allowed to exempt the countries that had special conditions from the oil cuts deal, he said, referring to Iran’s economic conditions in the wake of US sanctions.

Zanganeh further said in a letter signed by the OPEC secretary general and the chairman of the meeting, it has been mentioned that Iran is completely exempt from the resolution.

After two days of talks at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna, OPEC member states and 10 other oil producing nations agreed to cut output by 1.2 million barrels a day despite opposition from US President Donald Trump.

The OPEC members are planned to cut their output by 800,000 barrels and non-OPEC members by 400,000 barrels.

US President Donald Trump walked away from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in May and re-imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

US officials have also repeatedly said they will cut Iran’s oil exports to zero.

Trump on August 6 signed an executive order re-imposing many sanctions on Iran, three months after pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.

He said the US policy is to levy “maximum economic pressure” on the country.

The second batch of US sanctions against the Islamic Republic took effect on November 4.