The director of exploration at the NIOC, Mehdi Fakour, announced that the company's specially designed model will enable the extraction of oil from these resources.

Fakour stated that in the previous Iranian calendar year (which ended March 19, 2024), more than 2.5 billion barrels of oil were added to Iran's crude oil and natural gas reserves with new exploration activities.

He added that the discoveries will be announced by the oil minister soon.

Domestic companies possess significant potential for extracting oil shale resources, Fakour emphasized.

Furthermore, he announced the development of a unique and localized model in the country, which has yet to be adopted elsewhere globally.

The official went on to say that the extraction of shale oil in the United States costs approximately $40 per barrel. However, the new model implemented in Iran for shale oil production in the western province of Lorestan will cost around $25 per barrel.

In 2017, Iran had discovered shale oil reserves amounting to 2 billion barrels in Lorestan.

Shale oil is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale rock fragments by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution.

Iran is believed to have 158 billion barrels of established conventional oil reserves, the fourth largest in the world.