Bahrain discovers largest oilfield in decades

Bahrain said on Sunday it had discovered the country’s largest oilfield in decades, located off the west coast of the kingdom, according to state news agency BNA.

The new tight oil and deep gas resource is expected to contain many times the amount of oil produced by Bahrain’s existing oilfields, as well as large amounts of gas, BNA reported.

The oil discovery is the kingdom’s largest since 1932, BNA said. It did not give any details on the oil reserves discovered.

“Initial analysis demonstrates the find is at substantial levels, capable of supporting the long-term extraction of tight oil and deep gas,” Bahrain’s minister of oil, Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa said in a statement.

The small non-OPEC Gulf oil producer gets it oil revenues from two fields: the onshore Bahrain field, and the offshore Abu Safah field, which is jointly shared with Saudi Arabia.