{"id":15167,"date":"2018-09-15T11:24:17","date_gmt":"2018-09-15T11:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15167"},"modified":"2018-09-15T11:24:17","modified_gmt":"2018-09-15T11:24:17","slug":"iran-opec-chief-saudi-and-russia-are-taking-oil-market-hostage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15167","title":{"rendered":"Iran OPEC chief: ‘Saudi and Russia are taking oil market hostage’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Iran<\/a>‘s OPEC governor, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, has accused fellow OPEC country\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a> and non-OPEC country Russia<\/a> of taking the global oil market hostage.<\/p>\n

Their actions are a direct result of attempts by the United States<\/a> to cut Iran’s access to the global market off, he said.<\/p>\n

“Russia and Saudi Arabia claim they seek to balance the global oil market, but they are trying to take over a part of Iran’s share,” Ardebili told Iran’s oil news agency SHANA<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Trump’s efforts to cut Iran’s access to the global crude market has prompted Russia and Saudi Arabia to take the market hostage,” he added.<\/p>\n

“The American bullish behaviour will certainly not end with Iran becoming another Venezuela, as it was not the case with Iraq<\/a> and Kuwait<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Ardebili went on and accused Saudi Arabia and the UAE<\/a>\u00a0of welcoming US sanctions on Iran<\/a> for their own gain and claimed the organisation is losing its power.<\/p>\n

“Saudi Arabia and UAE are turning the OPEC into a US tool,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It is a fact that OPEC is losing its organisational character and is becoming a forum,” he added.<\/p>\n

“Simply said, nobody is afraid of a toothless lion that growls from time to time, and it does not harm anyone.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iran is currently OPEC’s third-largest producer, but the US wants to cut its production down to zero by November as part of sanctions imposed on the country.<\/p>\n

US officials are pressing allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, to adhere to the sanctions, which are aimed at pressuring Iran to negotiate a new agreement to halt its nuclear programme.<\/p>\n

In June, India<\/a>, the largest buyer of Iranian oil after\u00a0China<\/a>,\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0it expects to import less oil from Iran in the coming months because it wants to protect\u00a0its exposure to the US financial system.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Iran’s oil production does go down to zero, other countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia are expected to produce more to keep oil prices<\/a> stable.<\/p>\n

The US, led by President Donald Trump<\/a>, has also pressured OPEC to raise output in an attempt to reduce oil prices in recent months,<\/p>\n

Iran demanded<\/a> the organisation reject calls from Trump for an increase in oil supply<\/a>, arguing that the US has contributed to a recent rise in prices by imposing sanctions on Iran and fellow member Venezuela<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran’s OPEC governor, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, has accused fellow OPEC country\u00a0Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC country Russia of taking the global oil market hostage. Their actions are a direct result of attempts by the United States to cut Iran’s access to the global market off, he said. “Russia and Saudi Arabia claim they seek to balance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}