Too late for asking Iran to join oil freeze
While OPEC members, with some major oil producers like Russia, are preparing to hold a meeting on "common actions" for supporting market prices in Algeria in late September, the cartel’s Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo is going to visit Iran the next week to encourage the country to help balance the global oil market. Barkindo is scheduled to visit Tehran Sept. 5 to meet with Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh to talk the oil freeze plan, an oil ministry official said on condition of anonymity, Mehr news agency reported. Iran’s oil output decreased from around 3.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2008 to about 2.8 mb/d in 2015 due to the tightened Western sanctions on Iran. Under the sanctions, international companies left the country and none of them has returned as of now, even after elimination of the sanctions in mid-January 2016. Iran has resumed the oil production to about 3.7 mb/d, but the country has five joint fields with Iraq and has already d