Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan.25/ Trend F.Milad
Iran once again becomes OPEC's second largest oil producer, the Fars News Agency claimed.
With average production rate of 3.25 million barrels per day, Iran overtakes Iraq, the reports said.
Iraq is currently producing 3.2 million barrels per day.
Iran's representative to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Seyyed Mohammad Ali Khatibi said in September, 2012 that Tehran is still the second biggest producer in OPEC.
Rejecting the reports about Iraq replacing Iran as OPEC's second biggest producer, Khatibi said that according to formal data, the Islamic Republic ranks second.
Khatibi reiterated the fact that Iran's crude exports follow a constant pattern.
According to Iranian officials, Iran is OPEC's second-largest crude exporter after Saudi Arabia and sits on the second-largest gas reserves in the world after Russia.
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 during August 2009 to August 2010.
Only between March and December of 2010, Iran discovered seven gas fields and more fields are anticipated to be found in the current Iranian calendar year (started March 20, 2012).