Iran’s Oil Exports Jump Ahead of Producers’ Freeze Talks

Iran’s oil minister on Sunday said the country’s oil exports jumped again in March, potentially undermining a global deal to limit crude output and raise prices.

Bijan Zanganeh said Iran’s oil and gas condensate exports rose by 250,000 barrels a day in March, to surpass 2 million barrels a day, according to the oil ministry’s official Shana news service. The remarks were the oil minister’s first comments since a report emerged last week that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, would limit its production only if Iran followed suit.

The dueling positions by the Middle East’s two biggest rivals for power and economic might have set off a scramble among other oil producing nations to salvage a deal to freeze their output and stop growth in the world’s petroleum supplies. Global oil production outpaces demand by almost two million barrels on any given day now, sending prices to their lowest levels in over a decade.

Saudi Arabia and other members of the 13-nation Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are set to meet with nonmembers like Russia on April 17 in Doha to hash out a production freeze.

The Bloomberg report on Friday, citing an interview with the kingdom’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, shocked Saudi Arabia’s Arab allies in the Persian Gulf.

Before the prince’s comments, Saudi Arabia had been signaling it would hold production steady, instead of increasing, even if Iran ramped up its output. Iran just received relief from Western sanctions that crippled its oil industry and is increasing output to achieve pre-sanctions levels.

Another Iranian media source, the semiofficial Mehr News Agency, reported Sunday that Mr. Zanganeh rejected Saudi demands and that he would attend the Doha meeting “if he had time.”

An Iranian oil ministry official denied the report on Sunday, saying Mr. Zanganeh hadn’t given an interview to Mehr this weekend. Those remarks had been made by the minister on March 10, the official said.

But with the Kingdom apparently breaking ranks, Kuwait and Qatar are now scrambling to reach Riyadh to salvage the prospective agreement, according to officials in these countries.

On Sunday, Kuwait’s acting oil minister Anas al-Saleh said cooperation between OPEC and nonmembers would “certainly help stabilize oil prices.”

“We believe that a common agreement on a positive stand will serve market stability,” the minister said.

Oil prices have risen since Saudi Arabia and Russia met in Doha in February and first broached the idea of a freeze. Prices climbed over $40 a barrel in recent weeks, after lows of $27 a barrel in January. But prices fell on Friday, after the Saudi prince’s comments were published.