Iran to see boost in oil, gas production, IMF says
By Aynur Karimova
Energy-rich Iran, which enjoys 158 billion barrels of crude oil reserves, is planning to boost crude oil export to 1.81 million barrels per day during the current year.
This was noted by the International Monetary Fund on April 25.
The Fund said that Iran's crude oil export was 1.24 million bpd in 2015, and this figure will hit 2.13 million bpd by 2017.
Following the removal of international sanctions in January 2016, Iran's oil output is expected to increase by 520,000 bpd reaching 3.03 million bpd in 2016 and 3.32 million bpd in 2017.
In 2015, the country's oil production was 2.55 million bpd, according to IMF.
Meanwhile, over the first half of April, Iran's crude exports increased by 600,000 bpd compared to same period of last month.
Iran exported over 2 million bpd of oil in the mentioned period, SHANA news agency reported.
Iran vowed to increase its oil production to the pre-sanction level of 4.2 million bpd, including 500,000 barrels of condensates.
Before sanctions, Iran used to export 2.2 million bpd of oil and 300,000 barrels of condensate per day.
Iran's oil output plunged by more than one million barrels to 2.8 million bpd during a 3-year sanctions, imposed by western countries in 2012. Iran had to shut down some fields, but resumed the output to around 3.3 million bpd in March, three months after lifting sanctions.
Tehran says it would increase this figure to the pre-sanctions level, but most of international organizations, including the Energy Information Administration believe that the country can add only around 0.5 million bpd to its output in 2016 due to the delays in developing new fields and technical problems for resuming output from old fields.
Meanwhile, about 80 percent of Iran's active fields are in their second half-life and their production decrease by 8-13 percent annually.
Gas extraction to up
Touching upon the country's gas extraction, IMF said that the Islamic Republic's gas production will reach 3.01 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2016.
The IMF foresees 3.05 million barrels of oil equivalent daily gas production for the country in 2017.
The Fund said that Iran's gas export will remain unchanged during 2016 and 2017 compared to 2015 which was 150,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
--
Follow Aynur Karimova on Twitter @Aynur_Karimova
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz