“Massive efforts to raise oil production by one million barrels a day will begin within the next few months,” Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said at the inauguration ceremony of the 19th International Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Exhibition in Tehran on Tuesday.
“Such production capacity will be reached in the coming four years,” he said, adding that if this goal is achieved, it would be the biggest ever bargaining chip of the oil ministry since the increase in oil production will take place in joint fields.
The exhibition, which was attended by some of Iranian lawmakers as well as delegates from foreign countries, officially opened under the motto of 'Energy Diplomacy and Domestic Manufacturing.'
Elsewhere in his remarks, the minister touched upon the new development phases of the massive offshore South Pars gas field, south of Iran, and said 17 phases will be completed in 3 to 3.5 years.
The South Pars gas field, whose development has been divided into 24 phases, is located in the Persian Gulf straddling the maritime border between Iran and Qatar. It is estimated that the Iranian section of the field contains 14 trillion cubic meters of gas and 18 billion barrels of condensates in place.
South Pars is part of a wider gas field that is shared with Qatar. The larger field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran's territorial waters (South Pars) in the Persian Gulf.