"We discovered about 12 oil and gas reservoirs in the last Iranian year (ended March 19, 2012), which added 9bln barrels of crude oil to the country's in-place reserves," Deputy Oil Minister for Planning and Supervision on Hydrocarbon Resources Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr said at a press conference in Tehran on Sunday.
He also underlined that Iran plans to increase its daily oil output to 5.6 million barrels by the end of the country's fifth five-year development plan (from 2010 to 2015).
Iran ranks fourth in the world in terms of crude production after Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The Islamic Republic is also fourth in gas production after the US, Russia, and Canada.
The Islamic Republic has the world's second-largest crude reserves after Saudi Arabia and the second-largest gas reserves after Russia.
Earlier, the British energy company (BP) said in its Statistical Review of World Energy that Iran has oil reserves that would last for the next 88 years and is the second longest-lasting oil source in the world.
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Iran announced on Sunday that the country discovered 12 oil reservoirs with in-place reserves of 9 billion barrels during the last Iranian year (March, 2011-March 2012).
News ID 182803
