'No need for more OPEC cuts if prices stabilise'

Tehran, Nov 7: Iran's oil minister said on Tuesday OPEC would not need to agree to reduce oil output further in December if prices stabilised and said OPEC members, except Indonesia, were fulfilling an existing commitment to cut.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to cut 1.2 million barrels per day from production in November to stem a slide in crude prices but some traders have doubted the cartel's resolve to act.

Saudi Arabia has said OPEC might decide on a further supply cut at its Dec. 14 meeting in Nigeria.

Asked if OPEC would need to agree a further cut in December, Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said: ''It depends on the current cut's effect on the oil prices.

''If it affects the prices and stabilises the prices, then further cuts will be meaningless. And if not, then we will decide in Abuja.'' On the commitment of OPEC members to the existing agreement to cut output, the minister told reporters: ''Except Indonesia, which from the beginning said it cannot cut production, others are fulfilling their commitments.'' Indonesia, OPEC's second smallest member in terms of output, had previously said it would not cut despite the OPEC decision because its production was already low.

Iran's OPEC governor, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, told Reuters that Iran was honouring its share of the OPEC cut, amounting to 176,000 bpd, by stopping spot sales and supplying 5 percent less in some term contracts.

Officials had previously said some of the production cuts would come from reducing supplies to Iran's domestic refineries.

''Iran is honouring its commitment fully,'' he said, adding that it was ''in effect and for November''.

About 120,000 bpd was being cut by stopping spot sales, he said. ''Every month we were selling six to seven cargoes on a spot basis. We have stopped it totally,'' he said.

Roughly 50,000 bpd was being reduced by cutting 5 percent from term contracts -- staying within contract provisions -- to clients in north Europe, the Mediterranean and South Africa.

''We did it because in this part of the world the price is a bit cheaper than the East so we are fully honouring that and I am confident of that and this is verifiable,'' he said.

Under Iran's term contracts, he said, there was a provision where the supplier could, for operational reasons, deliver 5 percent less to the customer.

Reuters