Hassan Rouhani, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, revealed Sunday that Iran has discovered a new oil field with 53 billion barrels of reserves.

Hassan Rouhani, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, revealed Sunday that Iran has discovered a new oil field with 53 billion barrels of reserves.

In a speech in Yazd Province, which was highlighted on the president’s official website, Rouhani said, “we have discovered a new big oil field with 53 billion barrels of reserves. This oil field is as wide as 2,400 square kilometers (926 square miles) with a depth of 80 meters (262 feet)”.

According to BP’s latest statistical review of world energy, which was released in June this year, Iran had 155.6 billion barrels of proved oil reserves as of the end of 2018. This figure was the same in 2017 and stood at 137.6 billion in 2008 and 93.7 billion in 1998, according to BP.

Iran produced 4.7 million barrels of oil per day in 2018, which marked a 6.1 percent drop from 2017, BP revealed. In 2008, Iran produced 4.4 million barrels of oil per day, according to BP.

Discord and Division

In Rouhani’s Sunday speech – which referred to several topics – the president also stated that “discord and division are what the United States wants”. He went on to say, “despite what the United States and the Iranian nation’s enemies are doing, this nation is readier than any other time for defending its country”.

Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that U.S.-Iran tensions were raising fears of war. In September, a research note from Fitch Solutions Macro Research highlighted that the United States was “intensifying” its efforts to drive Iran’s oil exports to zero.

The note revealed that Fitch Solutions does not expect Washington to be successful in this endeavor and that the company is maintaining its forecast for exports to average around 400,000 barrels per day in the second half of 2019 and 2020.

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