Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namadar Zanganeh rejected the proposal to freeze Iran's oil production: "A simply ridiculous idea," he said, according to various Iranian media reports.
Saudi Arabia and Russia - the world's top two crude oil producers - had proposed a week ago, at the end of the Doha meeting with Qatar and Venezuela, that all producing countries freeze their production at January levels to support oil prices.
But Iran has just come out of years of international sanctions - which caused its crude oil exports to drop from around 2,5 million barrels a day in 2011 to 1,1 mbd today - and in January it announced it would to increase its exports by 500 barrels per day.
Saudi Oil Minister Al Naimi picked Houston, home to most of shale oil's rivals, on Tuesday to reiterate that the kingdom's crude output will not drop in the absence of an agreement among the industry's big names.
As a result, oil prices fell sharply: Brent -4,1% to 33,27 dollars in London, Wti -4,6% in the USA.
