…from Press TV, Tehran
[ Editor’s Note: Iran’s credit rating just went up. I assume that it has been holding back on this oil field news. And you can bet the Chinese were already aware of it before they signed onto the $400+ billion pledge into Iran infrastructure projects, much of that in energy.
As a key station on the New Silk Road, Iran’s having huge amounts of oil and gas are additional bonuses for anyone thinking of attempting a duplicate development game of this size.
As rail lines are laid down it will be a no brainer to make sure that pipelines will be able to follow the same route as total efficiency in everything possible will be one of the main engineering goals.
The West will only have itself to blame. The low interest on US debt, with the Chinese having held so much but earning so little, it became obvious that a much higher return could be made long term by investing in these mega infrastructure projects, and supply jobs for Chinese workers and others in the region for decades into the future.
This is something that neither the US or EU seem able to do. Name one $50 development project either has ongoing or even in the planning stages. The US is burying itself in debt, just keeping the doors open and lights on, while using world turmoil and regime change to help maintain that position.
It is not a long term winning strategy. In the end all it will have is the “war card” to play, similar to what Roosevelt did to get into WWII when all of this Great Depression stimulation hardly produced a single permanent job… Jim W. Dean ]
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Iran new huge oil field found in Khuzestan Province

– First published … November 10, 2019 –
President Hassan Rouhani says Iran has discovered a new oil field containing 53 billion barrels of crude in southwestern Khuzestan Province. 
Rouhani told a large crowd of people in the central city of Yazd on Sunday that the discovery was made despite US hostilities which have mainly targeted Iran’s oil sector.
“It is a large oil field that extends from Bostan to the vicinity of Omidiyeh spanning an area of 2,400 square kilometers with a depth of 80 meters,” he said. 
“Today we are announcing to the US that we are a rich country and despite your enmity and tyrannical sanctions, the Iranian oil industry’s workers and engineers have succeeded to discover this vast oil field,” Rouhani added.
The US has unleashed the “toughest ever” sanctions against Tehran since unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Rouhani said, “The first thing I would like to emphasize here is that we have withstood the pressure exerted by foreigners over the past year, during which our people had to go through difficult times.”
It’s been one year-and-a-half since President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal with Iran and embarked on a policy of “maximum pressure.”
Trump has been piling sanctions and heating up the rhetoric against Tehran, saying he aims to negotiate a better agreement with Iran and his policy will bring the Iranians to the table for that new deal.
However, the maximum pressure policy has not succeeded in bringing Iran to the negotiating table or curbing its regional activities across the Middle East as sought by Washington.
“In fact maximum pressure seems to have backfired and pushed Iran across the edge,” British daily The Independent wrote on Saturday.
According to the paper, “economically, Iran has been able to draw on some of its financial reserves to cushion off the impact of American sanctions.“
Politically, Iran has been able to utilize the theme of nationalism and historic grievances about big power bullying and fend off any unrest, it said. On Sunday, President Rouhani called on Iranians not to let “America’s wishes rise from the larynx of a few people, even though they are very limited in number.”
He said the Iranian people’s “resilience and unity and their ceaseless efforts have brought us to the point where the United States, in my opinion, has become disappointed.”
From an international perspective, The Independent says, the world is more sympathetic to Iran’s position in the nuclear dispute than the United States, because Iran stayed strictly committed to the nuclear deal for one year, after the US left the deal and violated its terms.
“There is also not much admiration for Mr Trump on the international stage – except among right wing authoritarian and neo-fascist groups – and that also helps Iran,” it added.
The Trump administration’s policy on Iran, the paper said, has isolated the United States and diminished its leverage to enforce the JCPOA, if not open the door to its complete destruction.
“At the moment, President Trump and his administration are running out of options on Iran. There is not much left to sanction in Iran, and short of military conflict, there is not a lot more pressure that can be applied,” it added. 
Meanwhile, statistics show Iran’s economic situation is improving and inflation has been contained, President Rouhani said.
Iran is a founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and sits on what were already the world’s fourth-biggest oil reserves and second-largest gas reserves.
The new find would add around 34 percent to Iran’s current proven reserves, estimated by the Oil & Gas Journal at 158 billion barrels of crude oil and representing almost 10 percent of the world’s crude reserves.