Azernews.Az

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) announced the country's recoverable liquid hydrocarbon reserves, stating that Iran’s oil reserves are estimated at 160.12 billion barrels and natural gas reserves are 33.33 trillion cubic meters.

These reserves make Iran one of the world's largest owners of reserves of crude oil, condensate and gas on the planet.

Iran has the world's largest hydrocarbon reserves, and, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Iran ranks third in the world after Iraq and Russia in terms of geological exploration.

Meanwhile, after the Islamic revolution of 1979, a total of 65 oil and gas fields were discovered in Iran, and Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh recently announced that light oil was discovered on the island of Minu for the first time.

At the head of the post-Islamic discoveries in this area lies the discovery of the South Pars gas field (with Qatar). The offshore field is the largest gas field in the world. Iran produces about 600 million cubic meters of gas per day from this field.

The discovery of the largest joint oil field, South Azadegan, also occurred after the Islamic Revolution.

Currently, this field produces about 100,000 barrels of oil per day, and it was recently announced that daily production at this field will increase by about 50,000 barrels per day by the end of the current 1397 Iranian calendar year, until March 20, 2019.

Yadavaran, Chengule, Azar, Bandar-Karhe, Arvand, Tosan, Paranj, Assalouye, Jofair, Aban, Binalood, Susangerd, Sohrab, Seper, Dehloran and Yadman are other fields that were discovered in Iran after the Islamic revolution.

Tabnak, Kish, Heirabad, Gordan, Zire, Mansurabad, Homa, Deir, Sefidzahor, Farsi, Ahvaz, Sefidbagkhun, Khalegan, Farzad B, Sumar, Tus, Sefid, Delavaran, Aria and Pazan have also been discovered over the past 40 years.

Iran is among the countries that have many common oil and gas fields with neighboring countries.

From the number of 28 common oil and gas fields of Iran with its neighbors, 18 fields are oil, 4 - gas, and 6 - both have oil and gas. So there are common oil fields with Iran and Kuwait, Qatar, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Turkmenistan.

Some of Iran’s common gas fields with neighboring countries are the Salman (with Saudi Arabia), Mobarak (with the UAE), Hengam (with Oman), Farsi (with Saudi Arabia), Gunbadli (with Turkmenistan) and South Pars (with Qatar) fields.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

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