OPEC’s 175^th Meeting was influenced by the US, he told a televised interview on Wednesday evening. “The US acted naively during the meeting.

“OPEC is not part of the US Department of Energy,” he said.

According to secondary sources, Iran's oil production from May to October fell, which is not approved by Iran, the official added.

“If Iran was not exempted from the OPEC decision, its share in the market would drop by about 600,000 barrels per day,” he said.

“The action of some neighboring countries was not friendly at this meeting,” Zangeneh said.

“OPEC resolution states that the Secretary-General and OPEC's President would allow countries that subject to certain sanctions to be exempted from production cuts,” he added.

“There are threats to OPEC from outside the organization, including NOPEC,” Zangeneh said.

“Brent prices rose to $61.48 after OPEC's decision. The volatility of the oil market is already psychological, and no production cuts have been on the market so far.”

He said nobody could predict the oil market, but the oil price trend was upward. 

The Chinese company is supposed to replace Total now that it has pulled out of the South Pars 11 project. If the Chinese company fails to act accordingly, it will be treated based on the contract, he noted. 

The official further added that Phase 11 of South Pars was equal to two conventional phases. 

"We needed state-of-the-art technologies to enhance production rate in South Pars gas field."

Regarding South Pars, "we have developed 21 phases out of 27 phases and three South Pars phases will be online by March 2019."

He also stated that 85 mcm of gas production from South Pars would be available by the end of the current Iranian calendar year to March 20, 2019.

The official stated that he would tap all the potentialities available in the country to counter the impact of “this unequal war”, referring to the US sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.

“I'm working with a number of colleagues to break the sanctions around the clock,” the Iranian Minister of Petroleum said.

“I cannot say what we are doing because it would be taken advantage of by Washington and they would block whatever way to find.”