"Iranian oil industry has taken big steps within the past three years and has boosted its production to 4.23 Mln bpd of oil and 500 Mln cm/d of natural gas through a $41 Bln investment." Iranian Oil Minister said.

According to Shana News Agency, Gholam Hossein Nozari added the oil industry experts have done their best to compensate the natural decline of production rate at the time.

Nozari also said that launching 12 petrochemical projects and producing 35 Mln tons of petrochemical products by the end of this Iranian year (22 March 2008) are among the great steps in the industry.

He pointed out that some of the outstanding steps taken by the industry in the past three years are as follows: the inauguration of a high pressure gas pipeline with an $850 Mln investment, the execution of the forth, fifth, sixth and eighth gas pipelines plans, increasing the country's gas processing capacity by 50 Mln cm/d, gas production from giant South Pars gas field phases 9 and 10 of by next few months, and 20 to 25 Mln cf/d of extra gas production from South Pars gas field phase 5.