Iran still world’s biggest natural gas player

EghtesadOnline: A new report shows Iran still has the world’s largest reserves of natural gas and is closely followed by market rivals Russia and then Qatar.

News ID: ۷۴۲۱۹۷

17 June 2017

The global energy giant British Petroleum (BP) in its annual report on world energy reserves put Iran’s natural gas reserves at 33.5 trillion cubic meters (tcm).

The figure was obtained as a result of estimates obtained at the end of 2016 and BP said in its report – named “Statistical Review of World Energy 2017” – that Iran’s reserves had remained unchanged from last year, PressTv reported.

BP further put the reserves of Russia – Iran’s closest rival in terms of gas reserves - at 32.3 tcm.

The world’s third largest reserves at 24.3 tcm belong to Qatar with which Iran’s shares its huge South Pars gas field.

Iran’s gas reserves account for 18 percent of world’s total.  The reserves of Russia and Qatar account for 17.3 percent and 13 percent of the global total, respectively.

In terms of production, the United States maintained its market supremacy in 2016 by producing around 750 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas.

Russia came next with about 580 bcm and was followed by Iran at 202.4 bcm.

The next biggest producers were Qatar (181.2 bcm), Canada (152 bcm), China (139 bcm), Norway (116 bcm) and Saudi Arabia (109 bcm).

According to the BP report, Iran also has the world’s fourth largest reserves of crude oil at 158.4 billion barrels (bbl).

At the top of the list stands Venezuela with 300 bbl and is followed by Saudi Arabia (266.5 bbl) and Canada (171.5 bbl).

Iran is followed by Iraq (153 bbl), Russia (109 bbl), and Kuwait (101.5 bbl) in the league of countries with triple digit oil reserves.