TEHRAN - The value of Iran’s annual oil and gas production has reached $217 billion and will rise in the coming years due to the vast new investments in the sector, Iran’s deputy oil minister announced on Sunday.

“By 2010, Iran produced on average 4.2 million barrels of oil, 600 million cubic meters of gas, and 400,000 barrels of gas condensates per day,” the Mehr News Agency quoted Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr as saying.
Commenting on the details of investment plans in the upstream and downstream sectors of Iran’s oil industry during the Fifth Five-Year Development Plan (2011-2016), he stated that if the financing programs are completely implemented, Iran’s oil, gas, and condensate output will increase considerably by 2016.
So the daily output of oil will increase to 4.4 million barrels, the output of gas condensates will rise to 1.1 million barrels, and the natural gas output will rise to 1.47 billion cubic meters in the next five years, he added.
“Through the implementation of these plans, the value of Iran’s oil and gas production will rise from $217 billion in 2010 to $350 billion in 2015,” Khojasteh-Mehr predicted.
In 2011, Iran plans to invest $15.8 billion for the development of the untapped phases of the South Pars gas field, $4.5 billion for joint oil fields, $3.7 billion for domestic oil fields, and $6.5 billion for other domestic gas fields, he said.
Iran will invest around $40 billion in the oil and gas sector in the current year, he stated.
Oil and gas output rose despite sanctions
Iran’s oil and gas output has risen considerably in recent years, despite the Western sanctions, National Iranian Gas Company Managing Director Javad Oji said on Sunday.
Iran’s current daily gas output is 600 million cubic meters, which will be doubled to 1.2 billion cubic meters in the coming years, IRNA quoted Oji as saying.
Oji stated that despite the harsh sanctions imposed on the Iranian oil sector, Iran is now self-sufficient in the oil industry and capable of domestically manufacturing any equipment needed by the oil industry.
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