Bijan Zangeneh, on the sidelines of agreement ceremony for manufacturing CRA (corrosion resistant alloys) pipes, told reporters that the main topic of the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) meeting which is going to be held on Thursday would be the extension of the November 2016 agreement on cutting oil supply.

As to Saudi Arabia’s possible resistance to the extension, he said that Saudis are now favoring high oil prices. The minister also ruled out any cut on Iran’s oil production.

Responding to a question on the time of Iran’s gas export to Iraq, Zangeneh told that the main obstacle in this regard is the letter of credit (LC) that should be issued in order to export gas.

The 172th meeting of the OPEC will be held in the organization’s headquarters in Vienna on Thursday.

Russia and Saudi Arabia, the two biggest oil producers in the world, have already announced that the agreement of oil output cut was required to be extended for another nine-month period.

The agreement was signed first in the official meeting of the oil OPEC in November 30, 2016 in Vienna; it was the first such consensus of the cartle since 2008 on cutting oil output aimed at pushing up the prices by curbing global supply glut.

According to the agreement, implemented since the first months of this year, OPEC decided to cut its oil production 1.255 million bpd for six months.

Iran, Nigeria and Libya were exempted from the cuts, as they are struggling to restore their oil production levels which were hit by sanctions and internal crises.