Saudi Arabia finds 5 oil fields, 3 gas fields

RIYADH: The world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia said on Monday it had discovered five new oilfields and three gasfields in the Eastern Province, the state news agency SPA reported.

Four of the oilfields were on land and one was offshore, Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said in a statement carried by SPA.

He named as the wells as Jaouf-11, Ramthan-9, Nayashen-1, Jarid-11, Jarid-101 and Khursaniya-114. In test drilling the biggest producing wells were Jaouf-11 at 2,551 barrels a day and Nayashen-1 at 2,076 bpd. The three gasfields, Arabiya-1, Rabib-1, Hisbah-16, are all offshore, he said.

Saudi Arabia holds a fifth of the world's oil reserves, at around 260 billion barrels. The statement did not say how much the new finds would boost reserves.