Iran Daily cited Mr Ahmad Qalehbani MD of National Iranian Oil Company as saying that with the discovery of new oil fields the volume of the country's exploitable crude reserves towards the end of the last Iranian year was 151 billion barrels and this volume has currently reached 155 billion barrels.

Mr Qalehbani said that we should be able to produce five million barrels of crude daily and 140 million cubic feet of gas by the end of the Fifth Five Year Economic Development Plan. During the plan period a total of USD 143 billion of investments in upstream industries would be required.

He said that close to USD 30 billion in new financial resources per year should be absorbed. We hope the amount for this year will be realized with the participation of banks and utilizing foreign resources.

Mr Qalehbani said that natural gas reserves discovered last year amounted to 22,400 trillion cubic feet. This volume of gas was discovered in Tous, Kouh Sefid, Forouz and Khayyam fields. Efforts are underway to minimize crude production decline and by using new financial resources and timely budgeting oilfields would be exploited this year.

He referred to the one percent increase in exploitation from oilfields in the Fifth Plan and said that at present NIOC with the cooperation of domestic and foreign companies and prominent universities is working on new technologies for new exploitation. In about 40% of the country's oil and gas exploration operations have still not been conducted. Last year USD 420 million was invested in the exploration sector and as a result new oil and gas fields worth USD 250 billion were discovered.

He said that last year the Oil Ministry followed up on moves for launching this bank. We hope with the collaboration of the Central Bank of Iran the bank will open this year. The initial capital of the bank would be IRR 3,500 billion.

(Sourced from Iran Daily)