Press TV - An Iranian Oil Ministry official says members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies, a grouping known as OPEC+, are holding a fresh meeting via video-conference to decide the share of Mexico in a series of cuts to the global oil supplies agreed earlier this week.


Oil Ministry spokesman Kasra Nouri said that the meeting had already started on Sunday and energy ministers of the OPEC+ countries were joining in.

He said the reason for the emergency meeting was to decide whether Mexico, a non-OPEC oil producer, should be excluded from a massive oil supply cut agreement reached on April 9 or if the share of the North American country should be reduced from an initial 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) demanded by other members.

“Probably, the reason for this sudden meeting is to remove Mexico from this agreement or to modify the share of this country from the oil production cut agreement,” said Nouri.

The official said that Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh was at his office in Tehran to attend the meeting via video conference. He said that other OPEC+ ministers had yet to join the meeting.

OPEC+ members, comprised of major producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia, agreed on Friday to cut their output by 10 million bpd until June and then reduce the cuts over the course of the next two years.

Members of the grouping also demanded a further cut of 5 million bpd by other producers including the United States to help boost oil prices in a market which has been seriously affected by the lack of agreement among major suppliers and a new coronavirus pandemic.