CAIRO, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- Egypt said the newly discovered oil and gas wells in the Abu Senan area in the Western Desert started production on Thursday, the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources said in a statement.
"The new wells started today to produce 7,000 barrels of crude oil and 10 million cubic feet of gas per day," according to the statement.
The new oil discovery was made after Borg El-Arab Petroleum and Mineral Company has drilled exploratory oil wells, it added.
Those wells will boost Egypt's oil reserves and production rates, according to the statement.
The ministry reiterated the new discoveries of the Western Desert signaled that the area is still rich of high possibilities of gas and oil findings especially in its deep layers.
The Oil & Gas Year, a yearly book which gathers info on the international energy industry, reported that by the end of 2018, Egypt was gas self-sufficient after 43 crude oil and 18 gas discoveries. Egypt is now Africa's top non-OPEC oil producers and third largest natural gas producer after Algeria and Nigeria.
According to official statistics in 2019, Egypt's production rate of natural gas reached 7.2 billion cubic meter per day, and 630,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
The country's consumption of oil products has been reduced from 39 million tons in 2015-2016 to 31 million tons in 2018-2019 after the government has adopted a new reform program for pricing the oil products.
Egypt's new discoveries led to reduction of Egypt's imports of oil products from 16 to 12 million tons.
