July 15, 2003	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 14, 1424

TEHRAN, July 14: Iran has discovered three oilfields containing more than 38 billion barrels of oil, a senior oil official was quoted by the Kayhan newspaper as saying on Monday.

Abol-Hasan Khamooshi, the head of Iranian Ministry of Petrol, Engineering and Development Company, told the paper: “In our preliminary estimates, we found out that in Koh-Mond oil field there are 6,630 billion barrels, in Zageh 1,300 billion barrels and in Firdows 30,600 billion barrels of oil, situated around Bushehr (bordering the Persian Gulf).”

He added: “All of these oilfields contain heavy oil.”

Iran’s output quota within the Opec oil cartel currently stands at 3.18 million bpd, but the actual production is closer to 3.6 million bpd.

Although Iran is the Opec’s second largest oil producer, it is to import 5.8 billion litres of gasoline for motorists’ consumption in the current Iranian year, which started in March, as the country’s own oil production is not enough to meet growing demand.

According to the Iranian oil Minister, Bijan Namdar Zanghaneh, utilizing current technology to excavate oil, Iran’s known reserves are around 120 billion barrels, but there are vast untapped resources, especially in the Caspian Sea.—AFP