TEHRAN, Iran, April 21: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his view on Friday that only rich countries should pay the ‘real price’ of crude oil and that poorer nations should get it more cheaply.

“We should adopt a formula and schedule to prevent the increase in oil prices from harming the weaker countries who do not have oil,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an oil industry exhibition in Tehran.

“They should not be harmed, although industrial countries who have hundreds of billion of dollars should pay the real price of oil,” he explained, adding that the Iranian oil and foreign ministries were studying the issue.

The proposal was first mentioned by Mr Ahmadinejad on Wednesday, when he said OPEC should set aside a quota ‘for poor consumers with better prices’.

The idea is along the lines of the pricing scheme used in Iranian state-run hotels, where foreign tourists pay many times more than local guests.

World oil prices have been reaching record highs of close to 75 dollars a barrel in recent days, amid concerns over tight US supplies plus mounting international tensions over Iran’s disputed nuclear energy programme — seen in the West as a cover for weapons development.

On Thursday Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh argued that OPEC was already producing at full capacity and that the market was “oversupplied”.—AFP