Iran's president says oil prices too low
Report: Iran's president says oil prices too low
Iran's hard-line president declared that crude oil prices, now above $115 a barrel, are too low, state media reported Saturday.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an oil and gas exhibition in Tehran on Friday that he thought the commodity still had to "discover its real value," according to the Web site of Iran's state-run television.
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.Ahmadinejad said despite high oil prices, the true value of crude oil, adjusted for inflation, is currently less than what it was in 1980.
"While the price of other commodities have increased, the economic value of the current oil price is even less than 1980," he said.
But some figures suggest that today's crude prices might have surpassed inflation-adjusted highs set in early 1980. Depending on how the adjustment is calculated, $38 a barrel then would be worth $96 to $103 or more today.
Ahmadinejad accused Western industrialized nations of "selfishness" in their quest for cheaper oil.
"When they get hold of oil, they assume that oil is a free commodity and belongs to them and has wrongly been placed in other territories. ... This is the spirit of selfishness and arrogance," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.
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