Iran yesterday announced the discovery of a new gas field north of the South Pars gas field, which it shares with Qatar, with a capacity of about one trillion cubic metres.

A spokesman for the Iranian Parliament’s Energy Committee, Malik Shariati said work in two of the four exploration phases in the field has been completed, noting that another oil field is expected to be found in the area and exploration operations are continuing.

According to the National Iranian Oil Company, the volume of Iran’s natural gas reserves is more than 33.7 trillion cubic metres, and the volume of oil reserves is about 157 billion barrels.

Iran ranks second in the world after Russia in gas reserves.

Last year, the Iranian government announced the discovery of underground reserves containing 1.9 billion barrels of oil, as well as 388 billion cubic metres of gas.