Iran has discovered seven gas fields during a nine-month period between March and December of 2010, says a senior Iranian energy official, Press TV reported.
Mahmoud Mohaddes, the exploration director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), also said on Saturday that Iran plans to focus on exploration of oil and gas on its border areas.
Mohaddes expressed hope that the energy rich country would discover further oil and gas fields in the next Iranian calendar year (starting March 21).
He made the remarks as Iran last week announced that a new gas field worth more than $50 billion worth of reserves has been discovered in the south of the country.
Khayyam gas field with in-place reserves of 277 billion cubic meters of natural gas was discovered in the southeastern port city of Assalouyeh in Hormozgan province.
"The newly discovered field of Khayyam in eastern Assalouyeh is located on land near the Persian Gulf and 30 kilometers (18.64 miles) west of Bandar-e-Moqam" in Hormozgan province, said Mohaddes on Thursday.
The NIOC official said the gas field holds more than 9.8 trillion cubic feet (277.5 billion cubic meters) of gas and has the capacity to produce 840 million cubic feet (23.7 million cubic meters) daily over a 28-year period.
"Estimating the value of the natural gas condensates at $60 per barrel, this new gas field is worth above $50 billion," Mohaddes said, putting the extractable amount of gas from the field at 7.32 trillion cubic feet (207 billion cubic meters).
Iran discovered 13 new oil and gas fields with in-place reserves of 14 billion barrels of oil and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas within August 2009 to August 2010, a report published by Iran's Oil Ministry said in August 2010.
The report added that Iran's revenue from oil exports during the past year reached $69.1 billion in 2009.
Iran is OPEC's second-largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia. The Persian Gulf country sits on the world's second-largest gas reserves after Russia.