Iran's oil revenue income was down 12.2 percent in the first half of the year starting March compared with the same period last year, a senior oil industry executive said in a report on Wednesday October 17.
Iran's oil revenue income stood at $9.8 billion at the end of September 2001 against $11.15 billion during the same period in 2000, the deputy director of Iran's National Oil Company, Hojatollah Qanimifard, was quoted as telling the Jomhuri-Eslami daily.
Qanimifard said the main causes of the slide were a "drop in oil exports following a decision by OPEC as well as a drop in the price per barrel," according to the conservative daily. Crude oil prices have slumped in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington, as markets react to slowing demand from increasingly recession-hit economies around the world.
On Wednesday, OPEC heavyweights Saudi Arabia and Iran pledged "to do whatever is necessary to maintain stability in the oil market," after talks between their oil ministers. "We are ready to do whatever is necessary to maintain stability in the oil market," Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Nuaimi and his Iranian counterpart, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, said in a joint statement in Riyadh.
Zanganeh traveled to Riyadh with a message to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz from President Mohammad Khatami on the crude price slide and how to stabilize markets, Iranian state radio said. His trip came ahead of a visit to Riyadh on Saturday by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for talks on the oil market.
On Tuesday, Khatami also discussed the market by telephone with Chavez, who is expected in Tehran next week. The Iranian head of state called for OPEC producers to coordinate their policies in order to "avoid a drop in the price per barrel and to guarantee the interests of producing and consuming countries."
Chavez, for his part, expressed his "preoccupation" over the drop in oil prices, the radio said. Chavez is lobbying other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to keep up oil prices, possibly through a cut in output. Khatami has blamed the slumping crude prices on what he said was an output increase by non-OPEC oil producers. — (AFP, Tehran)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
