DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s oil minister said imposing unilateral sanctions on crude producers would destabilise energy markets, the ministry’s SHANA news outlet reported on Wednesday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would seek to drive Tehran’s oil exports to zero.
“Depoliticising the oil market is a vital issue for energy security. Imposing unilateral sanctions against major oil producers and putting pressure on OPEC will destabilise oil and energy markets as well as harm consumers around the world,” Mohsen Paknejad told OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais.
Paknejad’s comments came after Trump restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
This campaign was first launched during Trump’s first term in 2018 and led to a sharp drop in Iranian oil exports to as little as 200,000 barrels per day in some months of 2020.
Iranian oil exports then rebounded during U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration and currently stand at around 1.5 million barrels per day, with the majority of flows going to China.
Paknejad also told state TV on Wednesday that Tehran had prepared strategies for any situation regarding U.S. sanctions.
On broader energy matters, Paknejad said the most important challenge for the global oil market in the medium to long-term was the issue of upstream investments.
“If today some major oil consumers are concerned about oil supply, this is the result of their political actions putting pressure on OPEC+ and pushing for regulatory restrictions on new upstream investments,” he said.
Paknejad was elected in December as president of the OPEC Conference for 2025.
(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Gareth Jones)
