Mr al-Shahristani said he expected the figure to increase even further Iraq has raised the level of its proven oil reserves by 24% in its first revision since Saddam Hussein fell from power.
The republic has 143.1bn barrels of known and extractible oil, up from the $115bn barrels that prevailed under the later years of Saddam Hussein.
If correct, it means that Iraq has overtaken neighbouring Iran.
In the Saddam era, sanctions and political isolation meant little new exploratory work was undertaken.
However, since he was toppled in 2003, Iraq has issued two rounds of international oil licences, and launched a big step-up in exploration efforts in the last two years.
Announcing the new figures, the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, said he expected “other increases of even these fixed reserves” as further exploration yields more results.
He also said that Iraq would now officially inform the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) of its findings, so that the new reserves figure can obtain international recognition.
Iraq is currently exempt from Opec quotas, and in any case only exports about two million barrels per day – well short of its target of more than 10 million barrels.
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