Azerbaijan, Baku, May.18/ Trend F.Karimov/
Iran will invest $16 billion in the South Pars gas field development projects in the current Iranian calendar year, which started on March 21, IRNA quoted Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) managing director Mohammadreza Zahiri as saying.
The lion's share of the investment will be funded through domestic sources, he added.
Previously, Zohairi said Iran has increased the production capacity of the South Pars gas field by 20 percent over the past two Persian calendar years (since March 2011), according to Press TV.
Zahiri added that the POGC has also increased the number of drilling rigs in the South Pars gas field from nine to 15 over the past year.
Zahiri went on to say that the POGC has particularly focused its development activities in phases 11, 12, 17, 18 and 19 of South Pars.
The Iranian official pointed out that currently "18 types of drilling services" are being provided by Iranian companies, eliminating Iran's need to foreign companies.
Covering an area of 3,700 square kilometers, Iran's South Pars, which is part of a larger gas field shared with Qatar, is divided into 24 phases and holds 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.
Iran, which sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia, is making efforts to up its gas production by increasing foreign and domestic investments, especially in South Pars gas field.