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"With this increase in production, Iran will not be in need of further gasoline imports”, Fars News Agency quoted Masoud Mir-Kazemi as saying after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The UN Security imposed in June a fourth round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Following the UN sanctions resolution, the US and the European Union imposed unilateral sanctions on the Islamic Republic which mainly target the country's energy sector.

Iran has stressed that it will soon reach self-sufficiency in gasoline production by constructing new refineries and improving the existing ones.

Mir-Kazemi further noted that the Oil Ministry has invested around $1.8 billion in the exploration of new oil and gas fields.

Commenting on Iran's possible participation in the Nabucco pipeline project, Mir-Kazemi said, "Iran was not involved in the project from the beginning [in 2002], but Iran is considered as a gas exporter and other countries should step forward and ask for it."

The Nabucco pipeline is a proposed natural gas pipeline from Turkey to Austria.

The project is to connect natural gas-rich countries in the Caspian Sea and the Middle East to the European Union in a bid to reduce European dependence on Russian energy.

The pipeline, which is expected to become operational by 2015, will carry 31 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year.