TEHRAN (Dispatches) – Iran’s Minister of Petroleum Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said non-OPEC producers should cut oil output to prop up prices, adding that he did not see "good cooperation" among producers, the OPEC member country's official IRNA news agency reported on Wednesday.
"We must also work towards non-OPEC (producers) cutting their production because currently there is not good co-operation," IRNA quoted Zangeneh as saying.
Zangeneh further said Tehran will not reduce its share of crude production at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Zangeneh pointed to a drop in Iran’s oil output over the sanctions against the country’s nuclear energy program and said that crude exports witnessed a daily 1.5 million barrel loss, but the industry made great achievements by developing oil and gas projects.
He also criticized the OPEC for its handling of oil prices and said the oil organization failed to make due decisions in its last meeting in Austria last November.
OPEC took no action to ease a global oil-supply glut in that meeting, maintaining its collective production ceiling of 30 million barrels a day. Oil prices have slid more than 50 percent since June last year.
Iran’s petroleum minister added that the country will fight for its rights and will not decrease even "one barrel” of its current market share.
As nuclear negotiations enter the home stretch, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said Iran's oil production is close to a historic high.
Iranian oil production of 2.78 million barrels per day in February was higher than January's by a fraction of a percent and close to the recent record established in December, OPEC said in its monthly market report for March. Iranian oil production for full-year 2013, the year in which the current round of multilateral negotiations began, was 2.6 million bpd.
OPEC in a readout of the Iranian economy said gross domestic product during third quarter 2014 grew by 4.6%, accelerating from the 2.2% decline in the first quarter and the 3.8% recovery for the second quarter.
Since March 2014, the start of the Iranian calendar year, the Iranian economy added nearly 400,000 new jobs, OPEC said in its report.
Iran under the terms of a November 2013 agreement is allowed some oil exports in exchange for commitments to curb some of its nuclear research activity.
Sanctions against Iran may be revised if there's a breakthrough during the current round of talks.  
 The budget for the current Iranian year, which ends later this week, relies on oil for 39.3% of government revenues. Drafts for next year call for a six percent decline in oil dependency.
Zangeneh said Monday he was confident the oil and natural gas sector would experience a period of prosperity in the coming calendar year.