TEHRAN - Iran does not expect OPEC to hold an emergency meeting before September, a senior Iranian oil official said on Monday, despite rising crude prices on world markets.
"No, I don't think so," Iran's OPEC governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili told Reuters when asked if Tehran expected the organization to meet before its next scheduled meeting in September.
He declined to elaborate, but officials from the world's fourth-largest oil producer have repeatedly said the market was well-supplied with crude and blamed the price rise on the weak dollar and other factors outside OPEC's control.
An OPEC source said on Friday that the producer group might consult on whether it needs to boost oil output before its regular September meeting should crude oil prices keep rising.
Crude oil rose on Monday to $126.14 a barrel, holding close to a record high of $126.27 hit on Friday.
Publicly, ministers and officials from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries insist that supply is adequate despite pressure from the United States and other major consumer countries for more oil to lower the price.
Another senior Iranian energy official, Mohammad Ali Khatibi, was on Saturday quoted as saying the weak U.S. dollar was the main reason behind oil prices rising to record levels, not demand or supply factors.
Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari last week said it would be possible to see a price of $200 per barrel for crude if existing conditions in the market continued.
