Iran aims to boost role at OPEC meeting

Iran looks to regain a global role at the OPEC meeting in Vienna. CNN's John Defterios has the latest.

OPEC ministers in Vienna did what most of them promised to do before the meeting, and that is leave their production output exactly where it is at 30,000,000 barrels a day, and why not? Oil prices have averaged more than $100 a barrel for North Sea Brent for a record 3 years running, meaning over $1 trillion a year in export revenues for OPEC producers, mainly here in the gulf.

There is no immediate challenge for OPEC, but Iraq’s rising production and Iran’s 6-months agreement with the P5+1 could present a bigger obstacle in 2014. Iran’s oil minister suggested that the Republic could get back up to $4,000,000 barrels a day if sanctions are lifted. That would mean that the group’s biggest producer Saudi Arabia may need to trim its sails.

Meanwhile diplomacy is moving quickly, here in the gulf Wednesday, Iran’s foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif met with the president of the UAE Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

If everything is cleared on the Iran side, I think they’re prepared within about a 90-day period to probably get back up to over 3,000,000 barrels per day of oil production. And it’s a little bit contentious, but Saudi will be the one who will be forced to cut back if they want to continue to prop up oil prices.

OPEC has its own internal politics to wrestle with, but at the same time, it’s competing with added production from North America. At this stage, OPEC is suggesting that the shale oil boom will begin to tail off by 2025. But this does not factor in additional finds in North America, Latin America or even Africa. At the meeting in Vienna, ministers could push that challenge to a later date and not deal with it right now.

John Defterios, CNN, Abu Dhabi.