Speaking to the press after attending the 18th OPEC+ ministerial meeting

which was held online on Friday, Zanganeh said: “At this meeting, I announced that if the sanctions are lifted, Iranian oil will return to the market as soon as possible; This is our official decision.”

“I announced Iran’s position in the meeting and emphasized that any decision made in this meeting will not affect our plans. We will return to the market with at least an amount equal to the pre-sanctions level,” he added.

The official noted that some OPEC members are in disagreement regarding their assigned shares for the cuts in the coming months and discussions are ongoing to settle the issue.

The 181st meeting of the OPEC conference was chaired by Angola’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Petroleum Diamantino Pedro Azevedo.

In the Friday meeting OPEC paid tribute to Zanganeh for his long-lasting contribution to the organization and the oil market.

Iran has repeatedly stated that the country is ready to come back to the oil market with full force after the removal of the U.S. sanctions.

Earlier in June, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Deputy Director for Production Affairs Farrokh Alikhani said that the company has taken all the necessary measures and is ready for boosting oil output to the pre-sanctions level within a month.

“Precise weekly, monthly, and quarterly planning has been made to restore oil production to pre-sanctions level, and if sanctions are lifted, most of the country’s oil production will be restored within a month,” Alikhani said.

“The average daily production of Iranian oil before the re-imposition of sanctions was 3.38 million barrels per day, and the National Iranian Oil Company has planned to return to the pre-sanctions production in the first step if the sanctions are lifted, and in the next step to increase production capacity to more than four million barrels per day,” Alikhani explained.

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“This OPEC summit was among the worst meetings I have ever seen during the history of this organization,” Zanegneh told reporters. “It was a pretty difficult session that had almost no outcome.”

OPEC, Russia and other producers, a group known as OPEC+, failed to agree on purposed oil cuts on Friday.

The proposal sought an additional 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil cuts until the end of 2020 to adjust crude prices to falling international energy demands following the global coronavirus outbreak.

Russia, a non-OPEC member, however, argued that it was too early to predict the impact of the outbreak.

Speaking on Friday, Zangeneh whose country is a member of OPEC but exempted from any oil curbs, said the summit failed due to disagreements specifically between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

“Six hours of private negotiations took place but Russia and Saudi Arabia weren’t able to reach a conclusion,” he said.

“Certain members of OPEC insisted that non-OPEC members had to participate in the oil production cuts, which they, in return, did not accept,” he added.

Zangeneh stressed that parties participating in the negotiations should be flexible, adding that “otherwise everyone will face negative consequences”.

The Iranian minister stressed that oil cuts previously agreed to by OPEC members had also not been extended due to the failure of the session.

Zangeneh said holding another meeting soon between OPEC and non-OPEC members will be difficult because of coronavirus health concerns but agreements can be reached by videoconference.

The Friday summit had also sought the extension of a 2.1 million bpd oil cut previously agreed by the OPEC + members, meaning the proposed total of the cuts envisaged on Friday would have been 3.6 million bpd or about 3.6% of global supplies.

The existing oil cut, however, will expire in March, allowing OPEC+ members to pump at will in an already oversupplied market.

News of the OPEC summit’s failure has since sent the price of benchmark crude into a tailspin, with oil prices down more than 6% at $47 per barrel on Friday.

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