Iran expects to earn a record $63 billion from oil sales in the Iranian year that ends in March and about the same next year if prices stay high.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest crude producer, has made windfall gains from the high oil price in recent years and its oil income amounted to around $60 billion in the 2006-07 Iranian year.

'It is anticipated that Iran's oil income by the end of the current year will be around $63 billion,' Oil Minister Gholhamhossein Nozari was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

'The income has amounted to $55 billion in the first 11 months of the year.'    

'If the world price of oil stays at the current level the projection of Iran's oil revenue (for next year) will be at the level of the current year,' he said. The Iranian year ends on March 19.

Nozari was last week quoted as saying Iran's oil output reached 4.184 million barrels per day on February 5, the highest since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

Prior to the revolution and the 1980-88 war with neighbouring Iraq, Iran produced roughly six million bpd, according to officials.

Analysts have said Iran's oil industry needs a big injection of foreign investment to boost output, but that Western firms in particular are wary of investing in Iran after the U.N. imposed sanctions on the country over its nuclear programme.  -Reuters