The Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) has announced that 34 new oil discoveries were made in the region last year. The organisation also announced that there had been 10 new natural gas discoveries made in 2013, according to news site Zawya.
The Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, quoted OAPEC’s monthly report as saying that the most prominent oil discovery was made in Hassi Messaoud, an eastern region of Algeria, estimated at 1.3 billion barrels.
While an estimated 71 billion cubic meters of natural gas, discovered in the Al-Shimal field in Qatar, was named the highlight natural gas discovery.
The report also revealed that OAPEC member states began work on several key projects in 2013, including the Karan offshore project in Saudi Arabia, which is set to produce 4.2 million cubic metres of gas per day, and another heavy crude oil project at the Manifa refinery, also in Saudi, which is expected to produce an estimated half a million barrels per day.
The Manifa project will reach a daily production capacity of 900,000 barrels of oil and approximately 65,000 barrels of condensate, in addition to 2.55 million cubic metres of gas.
“Although new substantial discoveries of oil and gas have been made in the Arab region, many oil and gas reserve specialists from international agencies, including the U.S. geological survey, believe that the region still has great potential for more discoveries,” a spokesperson for OAPEC said,
