Bahrain’s natural gas reserves, including non-associated gas are more than 20 trillion cubic feet, the MEED Bahrain Energy Forum was told today.
This is higher than is conventionally associated with Bahrain and compares with the 7 trillion cubic feet reserve figure reported in the authoritative annual BP Statistical Review of Energy.
Tatweer Petroleum deputy chief executive officer Hisham Zubari said the capacity of Bahrain’s gas gathering system was now 2.3bn cubic feet a day compared with 1.9bn cubic feet a day at the end of 2009.
The increased availability of gas is boosting prospects of early approval of major energy-based industries including Alba’s line-six project which will raise capacity to 1.3m a year compared with the smelter’s production of 880,000 tonnes in 2014.
The conference was told that the $1.7bn Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC) expansion plan is about to be approved.