Iran president says fossil energy below "real price"

Reuters 17 Nov 07

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Saturday he believed the market price of fossil energy, which includes oil, was still below its "real price," Iranian media reported.

"...the price of this energy is lower than its real price," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency before leaving Tehran, first to Bahrain and then to attend an OPEC summit in Riyadh.

He also said the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was under "heavy political and economic pressure," but without elaborating.

OPEC leaders open a two-day summit on Saturday which could offer Iran and Venezuela the chance to grandstand against Washington but will avoid discussion about whether to raise oil output.

The United States has urged OPEC to boost production because of shrinking oil inventory levels in developed economies and to help bring down prices that have surged to record levels.

But Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said on Thursday international markets had sufficient crude supply, and increasing OPEC's output would not bring down prices.

(Reporting by Zahra Hosseinian; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Michael Urquhart)

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