Iran has discovered 13 new oil and gas fields with in-place reserves of 14 billion barrels of oil and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas within the past 12 months. The Islamic Republic has also exported around 2,200,600 barrels of oil per day in the past year, according to a report published on the Oil Ministry's Shana news agency. The report added that Iran's revenue from oil exports during the past year reached $69.1 billion. Earlier this year, National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) director of exploration Mahmoud Mohaddes announced plans to explore new reserves of 500 million barrels of oil and 5 trillion cubic feet of gas per year during a five year plan. Mohaddes said that during the course of Iran's fourth five-year development plan (2005-2010), the country has discovered 19 new oil fields and eight new gas reserves. In 2009, Iran's crude production stood approximately at 3.8 million barrels per day. Moreover, Iran plans to increase crude output at three Gulf-linked oilfields by 30,000 barrels per day, the head of Iran's Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) has said. In comments published by Mehr News Agency, managing director Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh said that production capacity would be increased at Iran's Salman and Forouzan oilfields that the country shares with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, respectively. “Oil output of Salman and Forouzan oilfields will increase by 10,000 barrels per day,” Zirakchianzadeh was quoted as saying. IOOC is a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Around €400 million ($505.5 million) has also been ringfenced to bolster production at Esfandiar oilfield, which Iran shares with Saudi Arabia, he added. Gulf firms hold stakes in more than 15 of Iran's oil and gas fields; however not all contracts have run smoothly. Iran's offshore Salman field was scheduled to start exporting gas to the UAE in later 2005, under a 25-year contract between NIOC and the Sharjah-based Crescent Petroleum. NIOC has continued to stall over sending gas to Sharjah, prompting Crescent to seek international arbitration. The firm hopes to press NIOC to honour the terms of the original contract, said Badr Jafar, executive director of Crescent Petroleum. “We've applied in arbitration for specific performance goals because our counterparty is late, as is well-known, by a number of years. It's a state company that is managing their side of the project and they tend to be late, but this is now very late. The point for us is that they just perform and that the gas arrives,” he said. Iran last week began production at the Hengam oilfield in the Gulf, which it shares with Oman. The field, which is located along the maritime border with Oman, is estimated to hold some 600 million barrels of oil. The field is to produce 10,000 barrels per day of the finest and lightest of Iranian crude in the first phase, but its production level will reach 16,000 barrels in two months,” Iranian Oil Minister Massoud Mirkazemi was quoted as saying.
