Iran planning boost in gas output by 2015

Senior Iranian oil and gas officials announced that the country's gas output will reach 1.47 billion cubic meters per day by 2015.Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi said that the current gas output is 630 to 650 mln cubic meters per day and is projected to reach 1.47 billion cubic meters by 2015 which is the end date of the country's Fifth Five Year Development Plan. He also stated that Iran will try to boost gas production capacity from its joint fields with Qatar and Saudi Arabia. He said that Iran has implemented a crash plan to boost natural gas output at Phase 1 of the South Pars gas field. Iran has the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia and is trying to increase its gas production capacity by attracting foreign and domestic investment, specially in the South Pars gas field. He added that the field has 14 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, about eight percent of the world's reserves and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas. Energy experts say that Iran has 137.6 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and 29.61 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves. In June this year, The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) had announced discovery of another large deposit of crude oil and natural gas in the South Pars field in the Persian Gulf. It was estimated that the discovery would increase Iran's crude and gas condensate reserves by one billion barrels.The South Pars gas field is located in the Persian Gulf, north of Iran's maritime border with Qatar. The field's reserves are estimated at 14 trillion cubic meters of gas and 18 billion barrels of gas condensates.