TEHRAN (Dispatches) - Iran says the member states of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will not benefit if oil prices increase beyond $55 per barrel.  
Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh was quoted by the domestic media as saying that if oil specifically surges above $60 per barrel, the non-OPEC producers would increase their production to benefit the most from rising prices.
Zanganeh emphasized that there would be a balance in the market as a result of a recent OPEC deal to cut production to limited quotas.
Such a balance would be created in the market in 2017, he was quoted as telling reporters after meeting the visiting Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak. "This would only happen if no strange thing happens in the market.”
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian oil minister said that OPEC was determined to reduce its production and help manage the market.
Zanganeh added that non-OPEC producers, particularly Russia, would also keep their production as low as possible to prevent any fresh shock to the market. This, he emphasized, would benefit the producers and the consumers and would also provide a long-term energy security.
"This was for the first time in OPEC’s history that Russia cooperated with this Organization to help stabilize the market,” said the Iranian oil minister.  
Last December, OPEC clinched a historic deal with Russia and other non-members to slash global production by nearly 1.8 million barrels a day for six months starting January.
The Organization exempted key member Iran from cutting output, allowing the country to increase its crude production by 90,000 barrels per day to reach pre-sanction output levels of 4 million barrels per day.

Oil Prices Fall as U.S. Crude Inventories Rise Further
Meanwhile, oil prices fell one percent on Friday after U.S. crude inventories rose for a seventh week, showing that the market is still struggling to ease oversupply despite many producers' efforts to rein in production.
U.S. crude stocks rose by 564,000 barrels in the week to Feb. 17, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said, though the increase was less than the 3.5 million barrels expected by analysts.
The continued rise in U.S. inventories comes as members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers have cut output.
Their joint compliance with a production-reduction deal reached at the end of last year was around 86 percent in January, according to OPEC sources quoting results from a technical committee meeting held this week.
Compliance is set to rise even further in coming months as OPEC laggards United Arab Emirates and Iraq have pledged to catch up with their individual targets.
The United States, which is not part of the deal, continues to ramp up production. Analysts at ING said they expect U.S. output to keep rising while prices remain strong enough to encourage further drilling.
Benchmark Brent crude oil was down 68 cents cents at $55.90 a barrel by 1407 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate dropped by 54 cents to $53.91.
"Prices continue to retreat on repeated failure to rise above the upper end of their trading ranges and yesterday's inventory data also weighs," said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.
However, signs have begun to emerge that traders are depleting storage levels that soared while oil prices were weak.
In the United States, traders are draining the priciest storage tanks as strengthening markets make it unprofitable to store for future sale and as cuts in global production open export opportunities.
"Current oil prices are neither sustainable for OPEC or the industry," AB Bernstein said in a note. "As such, inventories will have to fall, which we expect will be clearer in the spring after the seasonal build."
In Asia, traders are selling oil held in tankers anchored off Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
***Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh