Page 9 - IRANRptMar20

Iran takes steps
And OPEC
mission is due to arrive in Iran on Sunday or Monday to help. Dr Ryan said on Friday that its departure had been delayed owing to "issues with getting flights and access to Iran", but that the United Arab Emirates was helping. President Hassan Rouhani has ruled out placing any cities or areas in quarantine, despite the head of the joint WHO-Chinese mission on Covid-19 saying such measures had helped "changed the course" of the outbreak in China. Cases traced back to Iran have been reported in Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Canada, Georgia, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. Many of these cases have been linked specifically to visits to Qom.
Meanwhile, Iraq has suspended issuing visas to Iranians and has taken steps to close its border with Iran. Iraq banned Iranian nationals from entering the country and its own nationals from travelling to Iran on Thursday following an outbreak of the coronavirus in the Islamic Republic. Returning Iraqis will be examined and, if necessary, placed “in quarantine for 14 days,” the Iraqi Health Ministry said. Iraq has cultural and religious ties with Iran and annually receives millions of Iranian pilgrims but local Iraqi media reported that the Health Ministry had decided to prevent Iranian citizens from entering the country until further notice. It has also banned public gatherings and barred entry to travellers from Kuwait and Bahrain because of the spread of the new coronavirus, prohibiting travel to or from a total of nine countries. Visas for the pilgrimage have been suspended by Saudi’s Foreign Ministry, which also announced that travellers from countries affected by the virus would be denied entry, without naming them specifically.
Iran is set to send a delegation to a critical March 5 meeting of OPEC ministers as the cartel looks for ways to respond to the potential slump in oil demand triggered by the coronavirus outbreak. Saudi Arabia has pushed for a further cut in production quotas. The coronavirus outbreak has been putting pressure on oil prices for weeks as Saudi Arabia-led OPEC and other oil producers try to gauge how the widening outbreak could affect global energy demand. Fears surrounding the outbreak have sent prices downwards and the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said its oil demand growth outlook - already at its lowest level in a decade - might have to be trimmed again.
So far OPEC, which is dominated by Saudi Arabia, has failed to persuade its allies to take action to offset the effect of coronavirus, but the Saudis are pushing to make a substantial cut in oil production when OPEC and its allies meet next week. The kingdom is asking producers including Russia to sign up to a collective production cut of an additional 1mn barrels per day (bpd), a significantly higher amount than discussed before. The plan is designed to show oil producers are able to respond to the sharp reduction in demand created by a virus that has paralysed global supply chains and stifled international travel.
Under the proposal, Saudi Arabia would account for the bulk of the new 1mn bpd cut, while Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Russia would split the rest. The deal has not yet been agreed, however, with Moscow still hesitant to participate in a substantial cut when the full extent of the coronavirus impact is not yet known. However, after frequent false starts at finding agreement for a production cut, the stars may be pointing to OPEC and friends crossing the finishing line at last.
9​ IRAN Country Report​ March 2020 www.intellinews.com