Saudi Arabia has expressed hope that it could boost its crude oil reserves by a hefty 200 billion barrels through exploration and more efficient extraction techniques.

“We are optimistic about the future because there are great opportunities to increase the kingdom’s recoverable oil reserves by about 200 billion barrels through new discoveries and increasing the extractable oil from known reserves,” said Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi, without giving a timetable.
Al Naimi was speaking at the launch by Crown Prince Abdullah of the Qatif producing plant programme in eastern Saudi Arabia, marking the completion of a plan to boost output by 800,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The plant informally started production in October last year with the processing of 500,000 bpd of Arab light crude from Qatif field and 300,000 bpd of Arab medium from the offshore Abu Sa’fa field, which straddles the maritime border between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Officials at Saudi Aramco have said they expected to add at least 150 billion barrels to proven reserves by 2025.
The extra barrels will come from fields it expects to discover in northern Saudi Arabia along the Iraqi border and in areas south of current oilfields.
“The kingdom has a surplus production capacity of around two million barrels which
can be used when needed,”
Al Naimi said, putting current maximum production capacity at 11 million bpd.
Saudi Arabia has been on a drilling drive to sustain a crude oil supply cushion of at least 1.5 million bpd despite production increases in the past few months, industry sources said.