Boosting oil supply will not affect price: Iran

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Global oil markets are supplied with enough crude and boosting output by even up to 500,000 barrels per day would not affect record high oil prices, a senior Iranian oil official was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

"The current rise in oil prices is not due to its shortage in the market. At this point, adding 100,000, 200,000, 300,000, 400,000 and even 500,000 bpd will not create a balance in prices," Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, international affairs director of the National Iranian Oil Company told Mehr news agency.

Saudi Arabia plans to lift output to 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in July, United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday after meeting Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi.

That would be a rise of 550,000 bpd of over 6 percent since May and would take Saudi crude output to its highest monthly rate since August 1981, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, has repeatedly said the market is well-supplied with crude and blames rising prices on speculation, a weak U.S. currency and geopolitical factors.

Oil steadied on Tuesday after touching a record near $140 the previous day.

Iran has often said it sees no need for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to boost output, as the United States and other big oil consumers want.

(Writing by Zahra Hosseinian; editing by William Hardy)