Azerbaijan, Baku , Dec.2/ Trend F.Milad/
By the end of the Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (March 2016), Iran's oil production capacity will reach 5.6 million barrels per day, the Iranian Oil minister said on Wednesday.
Iran's oil production capacity currently stands at 4.6 million barrels per day, the ISNA News Agency quoted Rostam Qasemi as saying.
"By the end of the plan, the country will also produce one billion cubic meters of gas," he added.
In October, Qasemi dismissed media speculation on the country's oil production and exports falling to about 2.7 million barrels per day, adding that Iran is still producing 4 million barrels per day.
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors to prevent other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. The sanctions entered into force in early summer 2012.
The Iranian Oil Minister also said in November that once all the phases of South Pars gas field come on stream, Iran will no longer need to import gas.
Iran attaches the priority to boosting gas production capacity from its joint oilfields with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Rostam Qasemi said in June.
Iran owns the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia and is trying to grow its gas production by increasing foreign and domestic investments, especially in its South Pars gas field.
The field is shared by Iran and Qatar. The Iranian share, which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of the total world reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.