:00:00. > :00:19.Spoiling the party in Vienna - Iran's oil minister says he won't
:00:20. > :00:21.back any deal to limit oil production which would boost
:00:22. > :00:28.Question is, why should we even care anymore about OPEC?
:00:29. > :00:31.Plus - strikes, price wars and security fears.
:00:32. > :00:33.Worrying times for the global airlines - but the boss
:00:34. > :00:44.of Lufthansa tells us passengers have never had it so good.
:00:45. > :00:57.Stop what you are doing and give me eight minutes and I will give you a
:00:58. > :00:58.snapshot of everything in the world of business and money. Let's get
:00:59. > :01:00.cracking. We start with the price of oil,
:01:01. > :01:03.because in the next few hours, the OPEC group
:01:04. > :01:05.of oil-producing nations will be starting their twice yearly meeting
:01:06. > :01:08.in the Austrian capital, Vienna. They have repeatedly failed to agree
:01:09. > :01:15.a deal to restrict crude supplies and prop up the slumping price
:01:16. > :01:22.of oil. Many are now questioning
:01:23. > :01:24.whether the group still has any This is Bijan Zanganeh, the oil
:01:25. > :01:33.minister of Iran, getting mobbed by Iran was of course under Western
:01:34. > :01:52.sanctions for years. It was blocked from basically
:01:53. > :01:57.selling it all. -- its oil. Now they've been lifted,
:01:58. > :01:59.it's determined to make the most Last night he told reporters,
:02:00. > :02:06."An output ceiling has no benefit Let's just give you a bit
:02:07. > :02:09.of context to all this. Brent crude is now trading
:02:10. > :02:14.around this level - $49 a barrel. In January, it hit this -
:02:15. > :02:24.a low of around $27 a barrel. So it's up almost 80% since then,
:02:25. > :02:27.relieving some of the massive Some of those nations will used to
:02:28. > :02:42.getting $120 a battle for oil. But don't forget, two years ago
:02:43. > :02:45.it was around $115 a barrel. So even after the recovery,
:02:46. > :02:49.it is still down by more than half. And analysts are saying the recent
:02:50. > :03:00.recovery is based on temporary We have seen the Canadian wildfire
:03:01. > :03:04.which not one million barrels a day of flying, and there we have seen
:03:05. > :03:11.Nigerian production get knocked off by a series of sabotage, which is
:03:12. > :03:15.not of about 600,000 barrels a day. I have not got a significant amount
:03:16. > :03:18.of crude oil, which is helped to push out oil prices slightly -- it
:03:19. > :03:19.not off. Richard Mallinson is a
:03:20. > :03:30.geopolitical analyst Thank you for coming in at this time
:03:31. > :03:35.of day. Let's start with Iran. It seems to be one of the big problems.
:03:36. > :03:40.They have not been able to sell oil for many years now and now they are
:03:41. > :03:46.allowed to sell. There will not come to the table and sell we will only
:03:47. > :03:50.sell a little. Iran wants a higher or price as well. It benefits it as
:03:51. > :03:56.much as Saudi Arabia and the other OPEC members. But it is saying we
:03:57. > :03:59.lost market share because of sanctions. They have been lifted and
:04:00. > :04:03.we want that market share back. And that market share, when Iran was
:04:04. > :04:09.blocked from the markets, it was sucked up by the Saudis. Some of it.
:04:10. > :04:15.Some went to Iraq and son went to shell produces in America. It is not
:04:16. > :04:20.automatically clear who Iran takes from, or can there be enough demand
:04:21. > :04:25.and growth, can we lose and supply elsewhere, to allow Iran to come
:04:26. > :04:30.back in. Iran is already exporting a lot more than was last year, and the
:04:31. > :04:36.market is managing to absorb that. Prices are still going up. At the
:04:37. > :04:42.end of today, as consumers we like low prices, and producers don't, but
:04:43. > :04:48.can this be solved is Saudi Arabia said OK, we will turn some of the
:04:49. > :04:52.taps off, for a while, and the price will go up. The Saudis have been
:04:53. > :05:00.resisting this ever since we saw the price of oil go down. Any decision
:05:01. > :05:04.in November 2014 where OPEC did not agree a cut was led by Saudi Arabia.
:05:05. > :05:09.It was a deliberate strategy to let the price go though. Let it have any
:05:10. > :05:12.impact on production elsewhere, and then eventually the market will
:05:13. > :05:16.rebalance. A lot of that comes back to in the 1980s when they tried to
:05:17. > :05:19.prop up the price, and it meant production fell by nearly two thirds
:05:20. > :05:25.and the price still collapsed. They did not want to go that way again.
:05:26. > :05:32.They are looking for the payoff in terms of higher prices. I have seen
:05:33. > :05:35.in the headlines and many people are asking, should we care about OPEC
:05:36. > :05:39.any more? They failed in the last two meetings to come to an
:05:40. > :05:45.agreement. Now you have fracking in America, ran in the picture. Do we
:05:46. > :05:51.need OPEC? -- run. We should still care. It still matters for the oil
:05:52. > :05:54.market and for prices, and the fact that the Saudis are talking to other
:05:55. > :05:56.OPEC members show they still care. We appreciate your time. Thank you
:05:57. > :06:00.for joining us. We are also talking airlines this
:06:01. > :06:01.Thursday. All the top bosses are in Dublin
:06:02. > :06:04.for the annual meeting of their trade body IATA - the International
:06:05. > :06:09.Air Transport Association. We've been talking to Carsten Spohr,
:06:10. > :06:12.the boss of Europe's biggest He says passengers have never had it
:06:13. > :06:19.so good, with air fares seeing some of the steepest price falls
:06:20. > :06:26.of any product. But it's also been
:06:27. > :06:28.a tough environment for the carriers themselves, with major
:06:29. > :06:30.cost cuts and increased concerns over safety, as he explained to
:06:31. > :06:45.our reporter Theo Leggett. Huge cost pressure has been in this
:06:46. > :06:48.industry for years. Obviously we cannot depend on the oil prices
:06:49. > :06:53.remaining where they have been lately. So I think that does not
:06:54. > :06:57.relieve us from continuously working on efficiency and cost reduction. We
:06:58. > :07:03.have been passing that on to the passengers historically. Only a few
:07:04. > :07:08.products have gone down in price as much as a traffic. Therefore I think
:07:09. > :07:12.the consumer is taking the benefit and flying more often, which is
:07:13. > :07:16.creating this extraordinary growth for our industry compared to
:07:17. > :07:19.others. You mentioned efficiencies and cost-cutting, but that has got
:07:20. > :07:22.you into trouble as well with your relationship with the unions. They
:07:23. > :07:27.have been a lot of strikes. Of course. Changing structures in
:07:28. > :07:33.general does create internal resistance, but in the end, we have
:07:34. > :07:36.a joint goal with our staff and shareholders, with our customers, to
:07:37. > :07:43.be able to grow and maintain our number one position, and the pain it
:07:44. > :07:47.takes will be accepted. Will you have more strikes? How our talks
:07:48. > :07:51.progressing? We have a constructive dialogue with our unions. We have a
:07:52. > :07:57.joint goal. After years of shirking our core fleet, we want to be able
:07:58. > :08:01.to grow that fleet, and that is what is guiding us in the current
:08:02. > :08:09.constructive dialogues -- shrinking. The cargo market is the
:08:10. > :08:15.most volatile of all businesses in aviation. It is more important for
:08:16. > :08:20.Lufthansa than other carriers, it was of huge export volumes out of
:08:21. > :08:23.Germany, which is made as one of the biggest cargo carriers in the world.
:08:24. > :08:31.Even in a down cycle we can show profits. We are optimistic about
:08:32. > :08:39.cargo, although not as much as his ago. I have to ask about safety. --
:08:40. > :08:43.years ago. They have been a lot of high-profile accidents recently. Do
:08:44. > :08:48.you think everything has been done that can be done to guarantee the
:08:49. > :08:53.safety of passengers? First, it is important to stay flying. This
:08:54. > :08:58.remains the safest way of transport. It has been and with all of the
:08:59. > :09:02.ongoing efforts to increase safety even further, it will be in future.
:09:03. > :09:07.Even though we have unfortunate accidents, incident, in the last
:09:08. > :09:12.month, historically, flying is as safe as never before. I have not
:09:13. > :09:18.visited one meeting at this conference where we don't touch on
:09:19. > :09:24.safety. It is the number one, surely for Lufthansa, and the whole
:09:25. > :09:27.industry. We will have more on that throughout the next day or so.
:09:28. > :09:30.Let's go to Asia now, where the US Treasury Secretary is in
:09:31. > :09:34.Let's ask Rico Hizon, who's following the story in Singapore.
:09:35. > :09:44.Hello! He will be meeting with the South Korean finance minister, and
:09:45. > :09:53.for sure, the foreign exchange will be high on the agenda. The US has
:09:54. > :09:57.accused several Asian countries of manipulating the value of their
:09:58. > :10:02.currencies, it including the likes of China, Japan and South Korea. The
:10:03. > :10:05.weakness of the South Korean money against the US dollar is likely to
:10:06. > :10:11.be a key discussion between the two sides. Also making business
:10:12. > :10:14.headlines today, the slight pickup in the domestic economy and South
:10:15. > :10:19.Korea. Consumption and production where the key drivers that led the
:10:20. > :10:24.economy to grow in the first quarter I a shade more than initially
:10:25. > :10:29.revealed. It expanded by Sir .5% in the first two months of this year.
:10:30. > :10:36.2.8% year on year. While that might be some good news, data since the
:10:37. > :10:40.end of March has been mixed. Data released yesterday was on this
:10:41. > :10:48.side. Production in April fell to a ten month low. So they are all
:10:49. > :10:54.making headlines today in South Korea. Thank you. Cheers.
:10:55. > :10:57.The taxi app Uber has won a $3.5 billion investment from Saudi
:10:58. > :11:07.I will have more on that later on. Follow me on Twitter. I will be back
:11:08. > :11:11.to take a look at the newspapers.