Bahrain announces discovery of 80 bn barrels of oil

Bahrain today announced its newly discovered shale oil reserve was estimated at more than 80 billion barrels, making the once-marginal oil producer potentially a major player in the market.

The size of recoverable oil -- or oil that can be extracted -- is still under study, Oil Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa told a press conference in Manama.

The new field dwarfs the Bahrain Field, the country's only other oil field, which contains several hundred million barrels.