20-10-03 An official of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said the materialization of the targets set for the oil industry in the third five-year development plan (March 2000-2005) was possible due to structural reform carried out in the sector. Speaking at a seminar on optimising oil revenues Mohammad Reza Moghadam said, "increase in production of oil fields is among the most important reforms in the oil sector."
He said the oil reserve's life-spans has risen to 93 years, “while gas reserves have slightly dwindled, due to over-production, but are still considered huge reserves”.
“In addition to higher oil prices, production of assortment of hydrocarbons including oil, light gas, and condensates, has led to export revenues rising by 40 % above the plan's targets," he added.

Another speaker, NIOC Director, Eskandar Bavarian said the recovery rate of fields hovers around 20 % rising to 25 % with injection.
"The figures compares with 30-35 % rate in the world," he added. Bavarian said Iran oilreserves responds better to injection of gas rather than the usual water, due to being “oil wet”. The active oil and gas fields in the country number 77, “of which eight are oil and the rest constitute gas fields”.

In related news, Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Company Mehdi Mir-Moezzi has said that Iran will sign the contracts to develop the giant oil field of Azadegan as well as the oil layer of the South Pars Gas field by March 2004.