TEHERAN - IRAN said on Sunday that Opec members should cut output to the agreed target quotas in the face of falling oil prices, two days before the cartel meets in Vienna, state-run IRNA news agency reported.

'The market does not need more oil and there is no need for excess production given the fall of oil prices,' Iran's envoy to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Mr Mohammad Ali Khatibi told IRNA.

'Members should return to the agreed quota and respect it. If a member does not want to go back to the Opec quota they should have a reason,' he added.

'The situation of demand and supply for oil in the world and the global economy indicates a weakening of demand,' Mr Khatibi said.

Iran is the second largest exporter in the Opec, which supplies 40 per cent of the world's oil. Crude oil, which hit a record high of 147 dollars (S$211) on July 11, has lost over 40 dollars in less than two months.

Mr Khatibi said that 'reasonable' crude prices could not go lower than 80 dollars a barrel.

'International oil companies say that producing a barrel of crude in some new fields costs 80 dollars so the oil prices cannot be lower than this considering a reasonable profit for production,' Mr Khatibi said.

Iran's oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari on Tuesday called on Opec to discuss quota-busting in its September 9 meeting and said that 100 dollars a barrel was 'a minimum' for oil prices. -- AFP