Iran Discovers 53 Billion Barrels Oil Field: Rouhani

Iran has discovered a new oil field containing 53 billion barrels of crude oil in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, President Hassan Rouhani announced Sunday.

Before a crowd of people in the central city of Yazd, the Iranian president said the discovery was made despite hostilities from the United States, which have been directed mainly against Iran's oil sector.

"It is a large oil field that extends from Bostan to the vicinity of Omidiyeh, with an area of 2,400 square kilometers and a depth of 80 meters," he said.

"Today we announce to the United States that we are a rich country and despite their enmity and tyrannical sanctions, the workers and engineers of the Iranian oil industry have managed to discover this vast oil field," Rouhani added.

The U.S. has unleashed the harshest sanctions against Tehran since it unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (JCPOA).

Measures got worse on April 22, as Trump decided to eliminate all waivers issued to eight economies allowing them to buy Iranian oil, basically imposing third-party sanctions.

As a response, Senior Iranian officials warned Tehran would boost its uranium enrichment, beyond the permitted 3.67 percent, every 60 days unless European powers protect them from U.S. sanctions.

So far its strategy has not even succeeded in curbing Iran's regional activities throughout the Middle East, as Washington intended.

"At this moment, President Trump and his administration are running out of options over Iran. There's not much left to sanction in Iran, and in the absence of a military conflict, there's not much more pressure that can be applied," Rouhani said, adding that statistics show that Iran's economic situation is improving and that inflation has been contained.

Iran, a founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, posses the four largest oil and gas reserves in the world. The new finding would add about 34 percent to Iran's current proven reserves, estimated by the Oil & Gas Journal at 158 billion barrels of crude oil and representing nearly 10 percent of the world's crude oil reserves.