Iran has found new oil field with 50 billion barrels of crude, says Prez Rouhani
Tehran, Nov. 10: Iran has discovered a new oil field in the country’s south with over 50 billion barrels of crude, its president Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday, a find that could boost the country’s proven reserves by a third as it struggles to sell energy abroad over US sanctions. The announcement comes as Iran faces crushing American sanctions after the US pulled out of its nuclear deal with world powers last year. Rouhani made the announcement in a speech in the desert city of Yazd. He said the field was located in Iran’s southern Khuzestan province, home to its crucial oil industry. Some 53 billion barrels would be added to Iran’s proven reserves of roughly 150 billion, he said. “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,” Rouhani said. Oil reserves refer to crude that’s economically feasible to extract. Figures can vary wildly by country due to differing standards, though it remains a yardstick of comparison among oilproducing nations. Iran currently has the world’s fourth-largest proven deposits of crude oil and the world’s second-largest deposits of natural gas. It shares a massive offshore field in the Persian Gulf with Qatar. The new oil field could
Ín the days US 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 HASSAN ROUHANI,
Iran President
become Iran’s secondlargest field after one containing 65 billion barrels in Ahvaz. The field is 2,400 square kilometres with the deposit some 260 feet deep, Rouhani said.
Since the US 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. Iran since has gone beyond the deal’s stockpile and enrichment limits, as well as started using advanced centrifuges barred by the deal. It also just began injecting uranium gas into centrifuges at an underground facility.