The Iranian government says it has discovered a new oil field which would increase the country’s proven reserves by about a third.

The Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani on Monday said the oil field which is located in the south-western province of Khuzestan and about 2,400 sq k, in area contains 53 billion barrels of crude.Iran has been struggling to sell oil abroad because of tough sanctions imposed on it by the United States after Washington pulled out of a nuclear deal with world powers last year.

“We have found an oil field with 53 billion barrels of oil in place, 53 billion barrels. This is in a big oil field that stretches 2,400 sq km from Bostan to Omidiyeh. The oil layer has a depth of 80metres,” Rouhani said during a speech in the central city of Yazd.

“Iran’s oil revenues will increase by $32 billion if extraction rate from the oil field increases only by 1%. I am telling the White House that in the days when you sanctioned the sale of Iranian oil, the country’s workers and engineers were able to discover 53 billion barrels of oil,” he added.

The new oil field could become Iran’s second largest field after the one containing 65 billion barrels in Ahvaz. Iran is one of the world’s largest oil producers, with exports worth billions of dollars each year.

The country also has the world’s fourth biggest oil reserves and second largest gas reserves, sharing a massive offshore field in the Persian Gulf with Qatar.