President Hassan Rouhani appeared guilty of hyperbole when he announced on 10 November that Iran had discovered a 53bn barrel oil field in Khuzestan Province. The following day, oil minister Bijan Zanganeh clarified that only 22.2bn bbl of the total was newly discovered; 31bn bbl had previously been announced. Rouhani had made his announcement during a speech in Yazd which was interrupted a number of times by conservative hecklers. “It is a large oil field that extends from Bostan to the vicinity of Omidiyeh spanning an area of 2,400 km2,” he told the crowd.
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