Middle Eastern nation Iraq has found an extra billion barrels worth of oil, its oil ministry announced over the weekend. The first oil exploration by state-owned companies in around 30 years threw up the discovery.
Exploration began in the southern province of Maysan, oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told AFP.
Mr Jihad told the news agency: “The initial assessment from this discovery is about one billion barrels of oil… It will increase production capacity for [state-owned] Maysan Oil Company.”
Despite being the 11th largest oil producer in the world last year Iraq could be one of the few places left where vast oil reserves haven’t been exploited, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
