Discovery could expand oil reserves

Iran discovered an oil field containing the equivalent of 53 billion barrels, potentially boosting its reserves as the OPEC member struggles to overcome the effects of sanctions on its energy industry.

It wasn’t immediately clear how much of the oil discovered in southern Khuzestan province is new or how much of it can be developed commercially. Domestic media reported the discovery Sunday, and the oil ministry held a news conference Monday to announce details of the find.

Iran currently ranks fourth in reserves worldwide — behind Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Canada — with 155.6 billion barrels and has the world’s secondlargest deposits of natural gas. It shares a massive offshore field in the Persian Gulf with Qatar. However, the Islamic Republic’s exports of crude have plunged since the U.S. reimposed sanctions last year.

“I am telling the White House that in the days when you sanctioned the sale of Iranian oil and pressured our nation, the country’s dear workers and engineers were able to discover 53 billion barrels of oil in a big field,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Monday.

Since the U.S. withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, the other countries involved — Germany,

France, Britain, Russia and China — have been struggling to save it. However, they’ve offered no means by which Iran can sell its oil abroad. Any company or government that buys Iran’s oil faces harsh U.S. sanctions, the threat of which also stopped billions of dollars in business deals.