“By the middle of the next [Persian calendar] year [beginning March 20, 2013], nearly 8.1 million barrels will be added to the crude oil storage capacity of Iran in the Persian Gulf,” Mahmoud Zirakchian-Zadeh, managing director of the Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC), said Sunday.
The official added that Iran is operating the world’s largest floating oil terminal in the Persian Gulf, adding that the terminal can handle exports of 2.2 million barrels of oil.
The storage terminal is located near Bahregan oil field in the southern Bushehr Province.
A forerunner in Iran’s offshore oil sector, Bahregan oil field first started producing oil in mid-1950s and currently produces 235,000 barrels of oil per day.
In response to stricter international sanctions against Iran’s oil sector, the IOOC has moved to increase the country’s oil storage capacity as a bargaining chip in international oil trade.
Iran holds the world's third-largest proven oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves.
The country's total in-place oil reserves have been estimated at more than 560 billion barrels, with about 140 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Heavy and extra heavy varieties of crude oil account for roughly 70-100 billion barrels of the total reserves.
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