50th anniversary of OPEC marked in Iran
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Ceremony was held in Iran on Tuesday celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Addressing a gathering in Tehran to celebrate the occasion, Iran's Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi said that OPEC can play a crucial role in creating balance in supply and demand of energy in the market.
The managerial role of OPEC in the market can also lead to stability in the market and can protect the rights of its member states, said Mirkazemi.
The cooperation and friendship of all the member states is also the requirement for market stability of energy, he added.
Mirkazemi said that in order for the balance of the market to be secured, the oil market should be free from any political motives.
Politicizing the oil market is aimed at imposing some restrictions on some OPEC member states which is not "logical' and will threaten global energy security in the future, said the minister.
One of the major concerns of the oil producers is "uncertainty of investments in oil sector" due to the global financial crisis and monetary behavior of some countries, he said.
The G-7, a group of seven industrialized nations including France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, can reduce taxes on their oil products in a bid to help confront the global financial crisis, the minister added.
The taxes that the G-7 receives from their oil products exceed the whole income of the 12-member OPEC cartel from its oil exports, said Mirkazemi.
The anniversary ceremony was held in Tehran in the presence of senior Iranian and foreign officials, foreign ambassadors along with OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri and OPEC Chairman Masoud Mirkazemi.
OPEC, created at the Baghdad Conference on September 10-14, 1960, is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
