TEHRAN -- The Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh announced discovery of 50 billion barrels of new oil reserves in the country during the past 4.5 years.

According to the Central News Bureau, he said development of the oil industry and discovery of new oil reserves are very important to his ministry.

He mentioned that 34 million people are covered by the urban gas network at present. Zangeneh said, "By the end of the Third Five-Year Development Plan in two years time, 90 percent of urban population would benefit from using gas. It reached 46 percent last year with consumption of gas increasing from 41.16 billion cubic meters in year 1375 (1996) to 67.8bcu.m in 1380 (2001)."

He added that gas refining capacity in Iran rose from 129bcu.m to 219bcu.m per day in year 1380. "Gas injection into oil wells was 58.3mcu.m in year 1379 per day increasing to 75.4mcu.m in 1380".

The minister referred to the investment projects in developing the country's gas fields and said that, the focus of all activities in the oil industry centers around South Pars gas fields. Total investment in this field's eight phases amounts to $8 billion. A total of 50mcu.m per day of refined gas will be injected into the country's urban gas network, by month of Mehr (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) this year.

He said phase one of South Pars with the capacity of 25mcu.m per day would become operational before the end of this year.

He added that "although we possess 18 percent of global gas reserves not only we do not export any gas, but we import.

This stems from the fact that we have lost past opportunities to invest in the gas industry. For this reason liquefying gas for export has been aimed for.

In reference to production of oil and Iran's OPEC quota he said, "From the total of 15 contracts worth $13 billion investment, more than 80 percent belongs to developing gas and oil fields.

A total of 610,000 bpd of oil are produced according to buyback deals. For smaller oil fields to produce 160,000 bpd appropriate contracts have been signed".