Iran Pressures OPEC to Slash Output to Boost Crude Prices : Oil: Tehran wants the cartel’s $21-a-barrel target met. It threatens to turn up taps unless other members agree.

GENEVA — OPEC began a strategy session Wednesday under a threat from Iran, which vowed to boost its oil output unless fellow OPEC nations agree to slash production and drive crude prices up to the cartel’s $21-a-barrel target.

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries met to establish output levels for the rest of the year.

An Iranian delegate told Reuters that Tehran, intent on raising more money from oil exports, wants OPEC to slash output by more than 300,000 barrels a day to below 24 million.

If most other OPEC members continue to pump flat out, Iran would make up for lost revenue by pumping at maximum capacity as well, he said.

“Anything higher than 24 million will not give us the $21,” the delegate said.

The price for a barrel of crude the group uses as its benchmark has averaged just over $18 so far this year, although it has strengthened lately to stand at $19.64 on Wednesday.

Ministers are counting on rising demand to absorb the extra oil and keep prices firm.

Iran’s production capacity has reached about 4 million barrels a day.

Other delegations and independent analysts treated the threat with a large dose of skepticism.

“I think they are just bluffing,” one senior non-Gulf delegate said.

“The maximum Iran can produce is 3.5 million barrels per day and I think they are already pretty close to that.”

Iran formally told the OPEC secretariat that it pumped an average of 3.21 million barrels a day in August, but its “true” level of output was close to 3.55 million, the Iranian delegate said, declining to explain the discrepancy.

Turning up the taps to force other OPEC members into line was a tactic used by dominant producer Saudi Arabia, which still has nearly 700,000 barrels a day of spare production capacity and would undoubtedly use it if Iran unilaterally jacked up output.

Iranian Oil Minister Gholamreza Aghazadeh, traditionally a price “hawk,” has declined to give any clues to reporters about his negotiating strategy at the meeting.

But OPEC delegates said Aghazadeh has bemoaned the group’s failure to reach $21, especially because inflation and the dollar’s recent weakness have eroded the real value of oil.

Delegate sources said Aghazadeh had won several supporters by urging his colleagues to “seriously consider” the fall in the dollar, which is the only currency used to price crude oil.