Iran ranks 3rd in oil reserves globally: OPEC

Iran has the third largest proven oil reserves across the world, new figures by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) show.

According to the data, Iran 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.

According to Press TV, 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 US 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.

ME