An Iranian Petroleum Ministry official says the country�s natural gas output has risen by 23 billion cubic meters over the past year.

Managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) Hamid Reza Araqi said Wednesday that since the beginning of operations of two refineries at the South Pars gas field in Iran�s south last year, over 23 billion cubic meters of natural gas have been added to the Iranian output.

Araqi said the production growth was due to collective efforts by a number of domestic firms, IRNA reported.

The increase comes after the development of phases 15 and 16 of the giant gas field last year, which upped Iranian production by millions of cubic meters a day.

Iran has over 20 projects in South Pars. More than a dozen phases have been made operational; several will be fully developed soon, and the remaining phases are still to be awarded to companies.

The huge offshore field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran�s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers are situated in Qatar�s territorial waters.

The field is estimated to contain a significant amount of natural gas, accounting for about eight percent of the world�s reserves, and approximately 18 billion barrels of condensate.

Earlier this month, a senior official said Iran will take over Qatar in production of natural gas from the key field that both share as Tehran expects a significant rise in production from South Pars before March 2017.

Ali-Akbar Sha�banpour, the managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC), told reporters that Iran�s production of natural gas from the field � called the North Dome by Qatar � will surpass 500 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) once several ongoing projects are fully developed.

By Press TV