Bahrain is setting up a $1bn fund to allow investors to participate in oil and gas projects in the kingdom.

“We are going to offer for the first time an opportunity for investors to invest in some of the asset classes in the oil and gas sector that have never been made available in this region before through the establishment of a fund,” said Sheikh Mohamed bin Khalifa al-Khalifa, Minister of Oil, at the Gateway Gulf investor forum in Manama on 9 May.

The National Oil & Gas Authority (Noga) is working with Osool, which manages the pension fund in Bahrain and Sico, to set up the private equity fund known as the Bahrain Energy Fund.

“We will be available as investors also, and we will seed it with capital and deal flow,” said Al-Khalifa.

MEED reported in late April that Bahrain was planning to establish a fund.

Bahrain’s oil and gas sector is attracting strong interest following the announcement on 1 April that it had made its largest oil discovery since 1932. The announcement of the Khalij al-Bahrain discovery marks the start of a new chapter for the oil industry in Bahrain, which was the first member of the GCC to discover oil 86 years ago.

The reserves are located in the Khalij al-Bahrain basin covering 2,000 square kilometres in shallow Gulf waters off the kingdom’s west coast, and are estimated to contain more than 80 billion barrels of oil.

Other projects include the expansion to the Bapco refinery, an aromatics plant, an LNG import terminal and the development of the Pre-Khuff gas resource below the Bahrain field.