TEHRAN –Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh briefed the press on the details of the newly discovered 53-billion oil reservoir in an unveiling ceremony in Tehran on Monday.

According to Zanganeh, the reservoir called Namavaran is the second biggest oil reserve discovery in the history of Iran’s oil industry.

The biggest crude oil discovery was Asmari oil reservoir with 54 billion barrels of in-place reserve.

The reservoir covers 2400 square kilometers of land and is placed nearly 3.1 kilometers beneath the ground surface and the thickness of the oil layers is estimated to be about 80 meters, the official explained. 

The area which this oil reservoir covers includes several already discovered oil fields such as Darkhovin, Jofair, Sepehr, Mansouri, Sousangerd and Ab-Teimour, with a total in-place reserve of nearly 31 billion barrels, so the new discovery, in fact, adds nearly 22 billion barrels to the country’s in-place oil reserves, he elaborated. 

Considering a recovery factor of 10 percent, Namavaran reservoir will currently add 2.2 billion barrels of oil to the country’s recoverable reserves.

“The field's exploration began with the most advanced exploration techniques in the Iranian calendar year of 1395 (started in March 2016) with drilling three assessment wells, which resulted in discovering the huge oil reservoir,” Zanganeh said.

Zanganeh further stressed the important role of new technologies in increasing the recovery factor of the country’s oil fields, saying “even one percent increase in the recovery factor of such a huge reservoir with 53 billion of reserve means 530 million barrels of more oil, which considering the current oil prices would be nearly $32 billion more revenue for the country, so we need to take all necessary measures to improve our knowledge and technologies for increasing the recovery factor in all oil fields across the country.”

He finally noted that development of the Namavaran reservoir will be carried out as part of the development projects of Sepehr, Jofair, Ab-Teymour and Mansuri fields.

National atlas of oil and gas discoveries unveiled

On the sidelines of the ceremony, Zanganeh and the Director of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC)'s Exploration Department Saleh Hendi also unveiled the national atlas of Iran’s oil and gas fields discoveries.

According to Hendi, NIOC has managed to discover 73 new oil and gas fields across the country in the past 40 years which includes 36 oil fields and 37 gas fields.
Some 26 of the mentioned discovered fields are joint fields in border regions, according to Hendi.

The atlas is prepared in English and Farsi based on world-class geological standards and the figures presented in the atlas are based on estimations at the time of discoveries.

EF/MA