AFP: The influential former president of OPEC's second largest oil producer Iran on Friday called the world financial crisis a tsunami which has dragged down oil prices and caused a huge loss of revenue.
TEHRAN (AFP) — The influential former president of OPEC's second largest oil producer Iran on Friday called the world financial crisis a tsunami which has dragged down oil prices and caused a huge loss of revenue.
"This is the first wave of the tsunami to reach us. The oil price has fallen from 147 dollars a barrel to around 64 dollars. This is a huge loss" for Iran, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said in a Friday prayer sermon on state radio.
"Our economists and government and parliament officials should cooperate and be prepared. The first wave has arrived and it was dangerous for oil-producing nations," added Rafsanjani.
He heads the Expediency Council, Iran's top arbitration panel, and also the Assembly of Experts which supervises the work of the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"We have to be able to control future such waves or they will inflict serious harm on our society, especially the poor," Rafsanjani said.
Oil prices hit record highs in July of above 147 dollars a barrel, but plunged to their lowest for 17 months on Friday, despite news that OPEC will cut output by 1.5 million barrels per day.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for December delivery, tumbled to 62.85 dollars a barrel — a price last seen in May 2007.
Ahead of Friday's OPEC meeting in Vienna, Iran urged a cut in the cartel's output to combat the sharp dive in oil prices as the world battles a financial crisis experts say it is the worst since last century's Great Depression.
