NIOC: Iran Pumps More Gas Than Oil

Iran is now producing more natural gas than crude oil, a top energy official said on Saturday.

"Production of natural gas, condensates and gas derivatives stands at 4.5 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) which is more than crude oil output, " Gholamreza Manouchehri, deputy for development and engineering at the National Iranian Oil Company said, Shana reported.

Iran pumps close to 4 million barrels of oil per day.

He said natural gas is being produced at an average recovery rate of 70% in Iran while recovery rate for oilfields range from 5% to 40% with an average rate of 26%.

NIOC has plans to employ enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and improved oil recovery (IOR) methods to enhance the extraction rate in operational fields and shore up average oil recovery rate to 40% in 30 years.

Natural gas makes up 68% of the energy mix in Iran. Following the rise in gas production from the giant South Pars Gas Field in the past three years, the government increased  supply of gas feedstock to power plants in a bid to curb use of more polluting fuels such as mazut and diesel.

Iran holds the world’s second biggest natural gas reserves after Russia, and has the fourth-largest proven oil reserves.  It holds roughly 17% of the world's natural gas reserves and more than one-third of OPEC's reserves.

Based on the latest estimates, Iran has crude oil and natural gas for at least 50 and 80 years respectively, excluding the new discoveries.