Iran has confirmed the discovery of 15bn barrels of new in-place oil reserves, but a top official has said huge investments and modern technology are required to exploit those reserves.
Ali Kardor, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), was quoted by local media as saying that around 2bn barrels of the newly-discovered reserves were “recoverable”.
Kardor added that around 1.8tn cubic meters (tcm) of in-place reserves of natural gas – around half of which he said were recoverable – had also been discovered. However, he did not specify when and where the new discoveries had been made.
Meanwhile, NIOC director for Corporate Planning Affairs Karim Zobeidi said the overall volume of Iran’s oil reserves stood at 771.53bn barrels, of which around 102bn barrels would be recoverable at a rate of 24.6%.
Zobeidi added that Iran’s in-place reserves of natural gas stand at 55 tcm of which 33 tcm could be recovered at a rate of around 70%.
The NIOC chief was further quoted by the local newspaper Iran as saying that a new round of tenders – scheduled for the next few weeks – would pave the ground for international energy companies to help develop the country’s oil and gas reserves.
Kardor also said that Iran’s production of high-quality oil would reach 4mn barrels per day (bpd) before April – what could be a landmark success for the country after the sanctions that had kept production a little above 2mn bpd were lifted in January 2016.
