TEHRAN - Iran, OPEC`s second largest oil exporter, has discovered two new natural gas fields, Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi announced on Monday.

The combined gas reserves of the two fields amount to around 800 billion cubic metres (28 trillion cubic feet), he told reporters.

"Forouz gas field is located in the Persian Gulf near Kish island and has 700 billion cubic metres of gas reserves," Mirkazemi said, adding that when brought on stream the field could produce around 70 million cubic metres of gas daily.

He said the second field was found in the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi and has 62.5 billion cubic metres of gas reserves.

It could produce four million cubic metres of gas daily, the minister added.

Iran has the world`s second-largest reserves of natural gas after Russia. The South Pars field in the Gulf has around 14 trillion cubic metres of gas, which represents about eight percent of world reserves.

BDST: 08.00 HRS, July 6, 2010