Ammon News - Drilling at well No. 53 in the Risha gas field, some 370 kilometers east of Amman near the Iraqi border, has shown "promising results", Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Hala Zawati, announced on Sunday.

Natural gas has started to flow from the new well which would raise the total productivity of the field, the minister said, adding that a final assessment of the well's projected daily output will be ready before the end of the year.

Excluding the new well, wells No. 50, 51 and 52 currently have a combined production capacity of 19 million cubic feet while the Kingdom's daily gas consumption is estimated at 350 million cubic feet.

Zawati commended the National Petroleum Company (NPC), which is managing drilling and production at the field, and said the firm succeeded in drilling a number of wells in a short period of time.

Since its inception in 1995 through 2017, the NPC produced a total of 229 million cubic feet of natural gas.