Despite the U.S. sanctions, Iran continues to explore and discover new oil and gas reserves and now ranks “first in terms of oil and gas reserves in the world,” Iranian media quoted Seyyed Saleh Hendi, head of exploration at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), as saying. “Based on our Five-Year Development Plan, we have had good achievements in exploration of oil and gas reservoirs, so that we now rank first in terms of oil and gas reserves in the world,” Fars news agency quoted Hendi as saying at a press conference this week. According to the CIA World Factbook with data as at January 2017, Iran ranks fourth in the terms of biggest proved crude oil reserves in the world, behind Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Canada. In the natural gas proved reserves ranking, Iran is second behind Russia and ahead of Qatar and the United States. The BP […]