Iran Discovers New Oil Reserves in SW
Director of Exploration Department of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Mehdi Fakour said that the country has discovered new oil reserves in the Southwest, adding that the details will be later declared by Oil Minister Javad Owji.
“For the first time, we have achieved the method of aerial magnetometry which is used up to a depth of 7,000 meters below the surface of the earth to identify reservoirs and hydrocarbon fields,” he added.
The technique involves using unmanned aircraft and magnetometers equipped with georeferencing systems and other navigation instruments to perform magnetic scans.
Fakour added that Iranian experts have also carried out well-logging on an offshore exploratory block in the Persian Gulf with gas reserves estimated at 30 trillion cubic feet.
He noted that the aircraft was designed by Iranian scientists, adding that the plane is currently being used to collect data.
“One tenth of the area of the country is to be surveyed by this plane,” Fakour said.
“Few people in the world have the ability to fly such an aircraft, which must be flown at a low altitude - 600 meters above ground - under special conditions. A 30-year-old Iranian, trained domestically, will do this grave task in the Zagros mountains,” he added.
Iran’s oil and gas resources are also some of the exceptionally most attractive in the world from an economic point of view.
They are trapped in large, conventional reservoirs with excellent geological properties that make them highly productive at a low cost.
Iran’s proven oil reserves of at least 160 billion barrels account for almost 10 percent of the world total and rank it fourth after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Canada. The country also sits on the world’s largest proven gas reserves of almost 34 trillion cubic meters, or 18 percent of the global total.
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