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A consortium of Premier Oil Plc, Sierra Oil & Gas S de RL de CVand Talos Energy LLC made the discovery in the shallow waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico just two years after winning the exploration license. It’s the first new find by a private company in the country in almost 80 years, according to consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd., possible only after the government ended the monopoly of state-run Petroleos Mexicanos.

When Premier Oil and its partners spudded the Zama-1 exploration well in May, the estimates were for as much as 500 million barrels of oil in place. In an interview on Wednesday, Tony Durrant, the chief executive officer of Premier Oil said that figure is now 1 billion to 1.5 billion barrels. Sierra said the primary target reservoir contains 1.4 billion to 2 billion barrels and could extend into a neighboring block.
Premier is taking a “reasonable guess” but said its partners may deem it’s being “too cautious,” Durrant said. Full drilling results due next month are more likely to confirm or upgrade current estimates, he said

Bahrain on Sunday announced it has discovered the largest oil and gas field in the history of the small kingdom, which unlike its Gulf neighbors is not energy-rich. Authorities estimate the newfound reserves at "many times" the volume of Bahrain's only other known oil field, the state-run BNA news agency said. BNA did not give details on the size of the new light shale oil and gas find or on the expected date of the start of production. Manama is the smallest producer of hydrocarbons in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also groups Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Bahrain currently has only one oilfield with several hundred million barrels of crude reserves. The field was the first to be discovered in the Gulf and the first to start production. It currently pumps around 50,000 barrels per day (bpd), in addition