TEHRAN - Iran possesses the second largest proven gas reserves and third largest proven oil reserves across the world, new figures by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) show.
In its latest report, OPEC put the country’s gas reserves volume in 2022 at 33.98 trillion cubic meters.
It said Iran’s gas reserves in 2022 remained at the level of 33.98 trillion cubic meters with no change compared to a year earlier.
Owning 47.75 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, the Russian Federation stood in first place in the world, followed by Iran. Qatar with 23.83 trillion cubic meters stood in the third rank, Fars news agency reported.
The total volume of gas reserves in the world in 2022 reached 210.063 trillion cubic meters, showing a 2.4 percent hike compared to a year before.
Iraq with 3.714 trillion cubic meters and China with 3.142 trillion of gas reserves rank 11th and 12th in the world respectively.
The report added, the country is in possession of a total of 208,600 billion barrels of oil, which remained unchanged between 2019 and 2022.
The figure stood at 155,600 billion barrels in 2018, but it surged by 53 billion barrels the following year.
Venezuela and Saudi Arabia had the world’s first and second largest proven oil reserves in 2022 with 303,221 and 267,192 billion barrels respectively, according to OPEC figures.
OPEC’s proven oil reserves reached 1,243,523 billion barrels in 2022, rising by 0.1 percent when compared to the previous year.
The world’s total oil reserves also stood at 1564.441 billion barrels at the end of 2022, showing a 1.1 percent increase compared to 2021.
Iran is a founding member of OPEC, an organization enabling the cooperation of leading oil-producing countries in order to collectively influence the global oil market and maximize profit.
The country is banned from international oil trade because of U.S. sanctions, but its oil export revenues jumped by 67 percent to $42.6 billion in 2022.
It is currently producing some 3.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and more than 1 billion cubic meters per day of natural gas. Iran has some 10 active oil refineries and 21 natural gas refineries while it also counts on massive hard currency revenues from its petrochemicals sector.