By Ayesha Daya and Glen Carey
Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) — Yemen, the smallest oil producer in the Persian Gulf, could triple its hydrocarbons reserves by developing its offshore oil fields with help from international companies, the country’s oil minister said.
“We have 10 billion barrels of oil in place based on the areas currently in production,” Khaled Bahah said today in an interview in Dubai. “Studies made a decade ago in the Red Sea areas suggested 22 billion barrels of hydrocarbons in place.”
Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is keen to attract foreign expertise to revive oil production that has fallen to about 328,000 barrels a day. The country’s oil production peaked at about 471,000 barrels a day in 2001, according to BP Plc’s Statistical Review of World Energy.
The country seeks to attract as much as $1 billion in initial investments for 11 offshore blocks it’s offering for exploration in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and around the island of Socotra, Bahah said. Total investment could surpass $10 billion if hydrocarbons are found, he said.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Nexen Inc. were among 42 international oil companies to attend Yemen’s exploration licensing presentation in Dubai yesterday. Those companies may invest in Yemen because of the shortage of worldwide reserves, limited access to deposits and high oil prices, Bahah said.
Bigger producers in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, have forbidden foreign companies access to their oil resources, which are tapped instead by state-run monopolies.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ayesha Daya in Dubai at [email protected] ; Glen Carey in Dubai at [email protected]
Last Updated: November 1, 2007 04:15 EDT
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