Egypt reduces production of raw oil

The production of crude oil in Egypt fell during 1997 to about 41.3 million tons from 42.7 million tons in 1996.

Officials in the General Organization for Petroleum said that the fall is due to a natural reduction in oil wells' production and not to decreased output aimed at maintaining petroleum reserves.

The volume of the remaining reserves of crude oil at the beginning of last January reached nearly 2.9 billion barrels compared to 3.4 billion barrels in 1986, which means that discoveries during the last 10 years have resulted in essentially maintaining the level of the remaining reserves in spite of producing nearly 3.1 billion barrels during this period.

During the last year, 38 new fields were discovered with high production capacities with three for natural gas and seven for crude oil already in use.