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Abu Dhabi, Nov 23 (IANS): An estimated 22 billion barrels of non-conventional and recoverable crude oil was recently discovered in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), it was announced.
In the announcement on Sunday, Abu Dhabi's Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) said that the latest major onshore discovery could increase the country's conventional oil reserves by 2 billion barrels, the official WAM news agency reported.
The SPC also approved on the same day to increase the capital investment in Abu Dhabi National Oil Company to 448 billion dirhams ($122 billion) from 2021 to 2025, reports Xinhua news agency.
The move is expected to re-inject 160 billion dirhams ($43 billion) into the local economy.
The UAE has the sixth-largest crude oil reserve in the world, from 4.2 million barrels in the early 1980s to about 98 billion barrels at present.
Among the seven emirates comprising the UAE, Abu Dhabi has most of the oil with 92 billion barrels while Dubai has 4 billion barrels and Sharjah has 1.5 billion barrels.