Iran struck oil after drilling operations at a major Iranian oil well in the Caspian Sea came to an end, Khazar Exploration and Production Company (KEPCO) said in a statement, Mehr news agency reported.
The drilling of the second well in the Sardar-e Jangal field in the Caspian Sea ended after three years. The well is approximately 3,500 meters deep.
Initial examinations suggest that the discovered oil from the second well in the Sardar-e Jangal field shares many similarities with the first well.
Iran started exploration in the Caspian Sea more than a decade ago by building the Amir Kabir semi-submersible platform. However, it discovered its first oil field in the Sardar-e Jangal field in 2011. The field is estimated to hold around 1.4 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 7 billion barrels of oil.
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) had previously drilled seven wells in deep waters of the Caspian Sea and discovered a major oil and gas reservoir while drilling its eighth well.
Oil ministry officials had earlier announced that a newly explored gas field was located in Iran’s territorial waters and no other Caspian Sea nation could claim a share in it.
Most of Iran's offshore oil reserves are located in the northern part of the Caspian Sea with many of the offshore natural gas reserves in the Persian Gulf. However, Iran has failed to capitalize on its vast joint underwater resources on the whole.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, a major project allowing Azerbaijani oil to flow straight to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan opened in 2006. In 2012, Azerbaijan extracted 890,000 barrels, Turkmenistan 46,000, Russia 6,000, and Kazakhstan 3,000 barrels of oil daily, while Iran's share of extraction in the Caspian Sea has remained zero.
The Parliament's Research Center reported in January 2013 the total extraction of Iran's Caspian neighbors from joint fields was nine times more than Iran at that time.
