Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov.14/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said the country's crude oil output is projected to rise to 5.2 million barrels per day (mbpd) by March 2016 from the current 4mbpd, the Mehr News agency reported.
Qasemi said that by the end of the Fifth Five-Year Development Plan (March 2016), the country's oil production should be increased to 5.2 mbpd and this should happen through developing joint fields.
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, adding that some $14 billion worth of new deals have been prepared and will be offered to contractors.
The deals are related to the Farzad A & B, Soroush, Esfandyar, Tossan, and Alfa fields, Zirakchianzadeh noted.
Iran has attached priority to boosting gas production capacity at its joint oilfields with Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The country has the world's fourth largest reserves of recoverable oil, after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Canada.
With 34 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, Iran has the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia.