TEHRAN, Feb. 03 (MNA) � By the end of the last Iranian calendar year (ended March 20, 2015), country�s crude oil reserves had reached more than 175 billion barrels and the volume of recoverable gas reserves had increased to about 33.5 trillion cubic meters.


Iran�s Oil Ministry has issued a report announcing the precise volume of discovered crude oil and natural gas reserves while the statistics indicate a significant growth in oil and gas discoveries over the 37 years of the Islamic Revolution.

Accordingly, by the end of the last Iranian calendar year, a total of 175.4 billion barrels of crude oil had been discovered in the country while the figure was about 87 billion barrels before the Islamic Revolution.

Moreover, the amount of recoverable gas reserves had been about 14 trillion cubic meters while the figure has reached 33.5 trillion cubic meters as a result of increased discoveries after the Islamic Revolution.

Over the first 70 years of oil production in Iran, a total of 28 billion barrels of oil had been produced while after the Revolution until the end of the previous year (1979-2015) more than 44 billion barrels of crude were produced.

Majority of the country�s gas fields have been discovered after the emergence of the Islamic Revolution with the accumulative volume of gas condensate production being�about 8.48 billion barrels.

Meanwhile, Karim Zobeidi, NIOC�s Deputy-Head of Body to Evaluate of Hydrocarbon Resources Plans, has provided new figures of oil and gas condensates of Iranian ores; �according to the latest discoveries, country�s overall reserves had risen 1bn barrels by March 21 2015 compared to that in the year before.�

Zobeidi had said that the only authoritative bodies to officially announce oil and gas reserves were Minister of Oil and NIOC directing manager.

Still in a related story, Directing Manager of Iran's Central Oil Fields Company (ICOFC) Salbali Karimi had confirmed the discovery of new oil and gas reserves.

British Petroleum (BP) annual report credits Iran with the largest natural gas proved reserves by the end of 2013; accordingly, Iran�s natural gas reserves show a 200bn cubic meters, thus amounting to 33.8 trillion cubic meters, followed by Russia with 31.3 trillion cubic meters, Qatar and Turkmenistan with 17.5 trillion cubic meters, and the US with 9.3 trillion cubic meters.

The latest report by BP gives Iran�s oil reserves staggering 157bn barrels of crude, which amount to 9.3 per cent of global reserves, and 19.4 per cent of the Middle East total crude, standing in fourth place globally.

By Mehr News Agency