Foreign investment sought

Manama : Oil Minister Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa said that foreign investment will be sought for the development of the oil field. “We aim to make it attractive for international companies to invest. The investment size required for this is very large, that is why we decide not to do it all by ourselves,” he said.

Responding to a question from media representatives as to how the benefits derived from the discovery will reflect on the fuel and electricity prices in the country, the Minister said, “Its very difficult not to see this having benefit. But I think at this time it is very early, so I am not in a position to comment on it yet.”

The minister added that land reclamation is being considered for cost optimization. “There is an opportunity of land reclamation. The development cost is one thing, the more important is the flow rate. The higher the flow-rate the lower the cost. What we are hoping to achieve is better than average flow rate from these rocks. The environment is very shallow offshore so there are ways of either reclaiming islands or other forms of optimizing costs. The advantage with shale is that cost reduces with time. This is the opposite of conventional, with conventional the costs increases with time,” he said.

Concerns allayed

Tatweer Petroleum Chief Executive Officer James Kenneth Eastlack told reports at the press conference that the development project will not have any adverse environmental effects because of the use of ‘fracking’(hydraulic fracturing).

“There is no need for concern about it inducing seismic sequences, the fracking that will be done will be absolutely safe.”