Mayo 2012. Iran has discovered its first oilfield in the Caspian Sea for more than a century.

The deposit was found at a depth of 2.5 kilometers during drilling on a natural-gas field and may contain 10 billion barrels of crude, according to the National Iranian Oil Co., Fars said. The strike is the first in the Caspian Sea for 104 years, the agency cited Khazar Exploration and Production Co. Managing Director Ali Osouli as saying.

The Caspian basin may hold 17 billion to 33 billion barrels of oil, compared with the North Sea’s 17 billion; the Iranian oil ministry news website, Shana, said in 2009. It may also hold 8,000 billion cubic meters of gas, Shana said.

Oil and gas fields in the Caspian Sea  

 While Iran is the second-largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia, most of its known reserves are in the south and the Persian Gulf, and it doesn’t yet extract crude in the Caspian, where nations including Azerbaijan are tapping large deposits and demarcation lines over territorial claims are disputed.

Iran currently has proven crude reserves of about 151 billion barrels, according to the OPEC website.

National Iranian Oil said last year that more than $500 million would be spent installing a semi-floating drilling platform in the Caspian and that the first exploration well would be completed by the end of March, helping Iran to catch up with neighboring countries already developing crude deposits.

Kazakhstan aims to begin production in 2013 at Kashagan in the northern Caspian, the world’s fifth-largest oil field, with partners including Shell, Total, Eni SpA (ENI) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)

  Territorial division of Caspian Sea

In neighboring Azerbaijan, BP Plc (BP/) leads a group pumping oil at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli project, the largest field under development in its sector of the sea, according to BP’s website. Source: Fuelfix.