RIYADH, 16 May 2007 — Two new gas-rich oilfields have been found in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province close to the massive Al-Ghawar field, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi announced yesterday.
The Mabruk 1 field, that lies 30 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Al-Ghawar, will produce 5,600 barrels of heavy crude and two million cubic feet (56,634 cubic meters) of gas per day, Naimi said in a statement carried by the official SPA agency. The field produced heavy crude with an API gravity of 27.4 degrees, it said.
The Darwazah 1 field, located 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) southeast of Al-Ghawar, will produce 5,569 barrels of light crude and 2.8 million cubic feet (79,287 cubic meters) of gas per day. The field produced light crude with an API gravity measure of 35 degrees.
The Al-Ghawar field — the world’s largest — has a production capacity of six million barrels of crude per day.
Saudi Arabia sits on around 261 billion barrels of oil reserves, a quarter of the global total.