Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug.27
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran will start natural gas exploration operations in Golestan province, which borders the Caspian Sea.
Ali Osuli, director exploration affairs of Iran's Khazar Oil Company, said the feasibility studies have been completed and exploration operations will start in the near future, Iran's Shana news agency reported on August 27.
It is hoped that the exploration operations would start before the end of the current year (Iranian solar year ends on March 20), he added.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on June 24 that Iran hopes to find new oil and gas reserves in western and northeastern areas.
Exploration operations in Golestan, Khorasan, and Kermanshah provinces are underway, Iran's Shana news agency quoted Zanganeh as saying.
Previously, Zanganeh said Iran's oil output could reach 4 million barrels per day in "less than three months" if Western sanctions are lifted over its nuclear energy programme.
"After lifting the sanctions, (in) less than three months we can produce four" million barrels of oil per day," he added.
That compares with Iran's current production of approximately 2.7 million bpd, according to OPEC data which cites secondary sources.
Iran still holds the world's largest proven natural gas reserves, at 33.8 trillion cubic meters-or 18.2 percent of the world's total proven reserves-according to a BP report published earlier this week, up from 33.6 trillion cubic meters at the end of 2012, when it overtook Russia.
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