Iran's Oil Minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari said yesterday that Iran will cut crude sale to France's Total company by 70,000 barrels per day, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"The cut comes on the heel of Iran's decision to slash its production by 199,000 bpd based on a newly specified OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) quota," the report quoted Nozari as saying.

He referred to Total as one of the clients of the National Iranian Oil Company and maintained that other clients would be gradually notified of their share of reduction.

Without referring to the size of Total's oil purchase from Iran, he ruled out the trimming with the company's purchase to be politically motivated.

"Iran expected all OPEC members to lower their oil production according to the declared quota based on the decision made by the oil cartel last week," Nozari said on Friday, adding that "Until we are able to meet stability in the oil market and OPEC makes a new decision on the issue, the trend will continue."

He also said OPEC may hold another emergency meeting prior to the December meeting in Algeria if crude oil prices continue falling.

Iran, which holds estimated recoverable oil reserves of 138 billion barrels, produces 4.2 million barrels of oil per day.

At the emergency meeting in Vienna on October 24, OPEC ministers agreed to reduce output by 1.5 million barrels a day to 27.3 million bpd from Nov. 1 in an attempt to prevent prices falling further.

Oil prices fell to below 65 U.S. dollars a barrel in New York on Friday as the prospect of a shrinking global economic growth and weakening energy demand weighed on the market.