TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran, OPEC’s second largest crude producer, said on Sunday that it favours a global oil price of between 75 and 80 dollars a barrel, the state television website quoted the oil minister as saying.

“From the point of view of the Islamic republic, the favourable oil price is 75 dollars to 80 dollars,” Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said.

Oil prices hit a peak of 147 dollars in July last year but have fluctuated this year between 40 and 50 dollars.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has said it sees 75 dollars as the price at which investment in exploration and production becomes profitable.

OPEC has cut its oil output by an actual 3.36 million barrels per day since September to below 28 million bpd, the lowest level since just after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

OPEC’s measures played a “fundamental role in preventing prices from falling further,” Nozari said.