Iranian oil minister due in Vienna to attend OPEC conference

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh plans to visit the Austrian capital to take part in the 164th Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting on Wednesday. The Iranian oil minister will attend the OPEC meeting to discuss maximum oil output, oil market developments, and oil output from August to October with his counterparts from OPEC member states. In the meeting, the member states would also select OPEC Secretary-General. OPEC was founded in Baghdad in September 1960 with the signing of an agreement by five countries of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. They were to become the founding members of the organization. These countries were later joined by Qatar, Indonesia, Libya, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador, Gabon, and Angola. From December 1992 until October 2007, Ecuador suspended its membership. Gabon terminated its membership in 1995. Indonesia suspended its membership effective January 2009.