DUBAI-Crude oil should be at least US$150 per bar­rel, Iran's oil min­is­ter was quot­ed as say­ing yes­ter­day, and the sanc­tions-hit coun­try's Or­gan­i­sa­tionof Pe­tro­le­um Ex­port­ing Coun­tries (OPEC) gov­er­nor said cur­rent oil prices were not high enough to threat­en the world econ­o­my.

Bench­mark Brent crude prices rose to near­ly $118 a bar­rel on Fri­day, stok­ing fears that surg­ing en­er­gy costs could harm frag­ile eco­nom­ic growth. Days ear­li­er, Sau­di Oil Min­is­ter Ali al-Nai­mi said he was wor­ried by high prices and the king­dom would take steps to mod­er­ate them. Iran­ian oil of­fi­cials say oil prices are still fair­ly low and de­ny there is any dan­ger of cur­rent prices ham­per­ing growth.

Iran­ian oil min­is­ter Ros­tam Qase­mi said on Sun­day crude oil ought to be at least US$150 per bar­rel, the Iran­ian Stu­dents' News Agency (IS­NA) re­port­ed. "Dur­ing the win­ter, oil prices al­ways climb," Qase­mi said. "So it's nat­ur­al that this year as well we will have a rise in oil prices in the win­ter."

Mo­ham­mad Ali Khat­i­bi, who rep­re­sents Iran on the board of gov­er­nors of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Pe­tro­le­um Ex­port­ing Coun­tries (OPEC) told the oil min­istry news web­site Shana that even price-sen­si­tive con­sumers saw $100 a bar­rel as fair. He ar­gued that prices a "few dol­lars" above that lev­el were un­like­ly to up­set West­ern economies. "Cur­rent oil prices rep­re­sent nom­i­nal prices of the com­mod­i­ty," Khat­i­bi was quot­ed as say­ing by Shana.