Iranian Oil Minister Jawad Owji said Wednesday that Iran will soon launch 32 oil industry projects with a total investment of $4.6 billion. Iranian media quoted Owji as saying that Iran has also started developing 50 new oil projects with a total value of more than $50 billion.

Earlier in May, Iran's oil minister said the country had increased its crude oil production by 60 percent since 2021. Owji also said that in the most recent Iranian calendar year ending March 19, 2024, Iran's oil and gas production increased by 20 percent compared to the previous year.

Iran has signed new contracts worth $13 billion to develop oil fields and plans to increase production by 350,000 barrels per day, the official Iranian news agency Shana reported in March. According to Owji, the deals are among the largest in the energy sector in the past decade and were all signed with local companies. The production increase will focus on six fields, including Iran's largest field in Azadegan, which it shares with neighboring Iraq, and Masjed Soleyman, Iran's oldest field. The latter is the oldest oil field in the Middle East, with total production to date of more than 1 billion barrels.

Reuters quoted Iran's Tasnim news agency as reporting earlier this week that Iran plans to increase crude oil production to 4 million barrels per day. No specific sources were provided for the plan, but Tasnim's original report said that "the Economic Council headed by Iran's interim President Mohammad Mohebel has approved a plan to increase Iran's crude oil production from 3.6 million barrels per day to 4 million barrels per day."

Iran has been eager to increase its crude production despite U.S. sanctions that have significantly weakened the market for Iranian oil. Even so, Iran recently reported an increase in crude oil exports, with average daily exports in the first quarter reaching a six-year high of 1.56 million BPD, according to Vortexa. Last year, Iran exported an average of 1.29 million barrels per day, up 50 percent from the same period last year. Editor/Xu Shengpeng