Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.17 / Trend F.Mehdi/
Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi announced that the country's recoverable oil reserves are currently about 157 billion barrels, ISNA reported.
The reserves have been increased to 157 billion barrels from 154 billion barrels in the previous year, he added.
He noted that there is no exact figure about the country's natural gas reserves.
In November 2012, IRNA quoted Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Mohsen Khojastehmehr as saying that Iran's oil production will reach 5.3 million barrels per day (mbpd) by 2015 from currently 4.3mbpd.
He also put the current volume of natural gas and condensate outputs at 670 million cubic meters and 400,000 barrels per day, respectively.
The figures will reach 1.48 billion cubic meters and 1.2 million barrels per day by 2015, he noted.
Meanwhile, Qasemi said that the country's crude oil output is projected to rise to 5.2 mbpd by the end of the Fifth Five-Year Development Plan (2015).
On October 14, Iranian Offshore Oil Company's Managing Director Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh said Iran has prepared oil development plans, with an estimated cost of $14 billion, related to oilfields located in the Persian Gulf.
"During the past two years, as much as $20 billion worth of deals have been signed," he said, "New deals worth $14 billion have been prepared and will be offered to contractors," he added.
Iran has attached priority to boosting gas production capacity at its joint oilfields with Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Iran has the world's fourth-largest reserves of recoverable oil, after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Canada.