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The Middle East comprising Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait is perhaps the richest oil-area on earth. About 60 per cent of world's crude oil reserves are located in this area. The development of its oil has been based on foreign capital-British and American. It has an estimated oil reserve of 6500 million metric tons. Agha Jaria of Iran, Burgau of Kuwait and Abqaiq are extremely important oil fields.

Iran: Production on a large scale began in 1913. Abadan refinery on the Persian Gulf is the largest refinery with a refining capacity of 440,000 barrels a day. The principal oil fields are in the southwest around Kazitan. These fields are at Musjid-i-Suleman, Halt-Kel Gach Saran, Agha Jars, Naft Safid and Lali. The reserve being abundant and market demand being great, further increase in production is almost definite. The trend in production of crude oil during the last few years is as follows

Oil Production In Iran
million metric	tons
	1980	193
	1985	110
	1988	112

Iraq: Iraq has over 9% of the world's reserves of oil. The oil fields are situated at Baba Gagur, a few miles north of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. The production in 1954 was 30.6 million metric tons and in 1985 was 70 million metric tons. The Kirkuk oil field in Iraq stretching for 70 miles is one of the greatest single oil fields in the world. The trend in production of crude petroleum during the last few years is shown below

Oil Production In Iraq
Year	million metric tons
	1980	76
	1985	70
	1988	70

Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia has 10% of the world's reserves of oil. Oil fields are located in Dhahran, Abqaic and Ghawar. She produced 346 million metric tons of crude in 1985. A refinery has been built at Dhahran. However, the bulk of the crude oil is sent to a larger refinery on the island of Bahrain. The last few years' production figures are shown below.

Oil Production In Saudi Arabia
Year		million metric tons
1980		176.0
1985		346.0
1988		348.0

Kuwait. Kuwait has 16% of the world's reserves of oil. These fields have enormous reserves, the wells are shallow and most of them produce oil of high quality. Burgan is the most important oil field in Kuwait. This field produces about 20 million metric tons of oil annually. Her production was 120.0 million metric tones and 122 million metric tones in 1985 and 1988 respectively.

In 1985 Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia supplied 63% of world's export of oil.

Libya: Libya appeared on the oil map in 1955. Since then, the outstanding feature of the country has been the speed at which the oil fields have been developed. Libya appears to be in the class of great Middle East producers. In 1988 production was about 16 million tons.

Altogether 20 companies are involved in exploration in Libya. The speed of development is due to the low costs of production so far achieved and proximity to the European markets.

Egypt: Egypt is the only country of Africa where important increase in petroleum production has been achieved. Commercial production started in 1911. The estimated reserves were 250 million barrels in 1956.

The production in Sinai Peninsula has also gone up and now exceeds 2 million metric tons. She produced 5 million metric tons in 1988.

Next: Petroleum Refining