CAIRO (Reuters/Web Desk) – An additional 15 trillion standard cubic feet of gas have been proven at Saudi state oil company Aramco's Jafurah gas field, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Sunday.

Reserves at Jafurah have reached 229 trillion cubic feet of gas and 75 billion barrels of condensates, Prince Abdulaziz said in a statement on state news agency SPA.

Saudi Arabia is working on developing its unconventional gas reserves, which require advanced extraction methods such as those used in the shale gas industry.

Jafurah is the kingdom's largest unconventional non-oil associated gas field and it is potentially the biggest shale gas development outside of the United States.

In 2020, the Jafurah field was estimated to require investments of $110 billion.

Saudi Aramco expects output to reach 420 million cubic feet per day of ethane by 2030, it said on its website. The Jafurah field would produce some 630,000 barrels per day of gas liquids and condensates by 2030, it said.

The news comes as Qatar announced further raising gas production despite a steep drop in global gas prices, pushing ahead with plans to extract more of the resource amidst fierce competition with rivals such as the United States.

QatarEnergy chief Saad al-Kaabi shared the details of a new expansion of its liquefied natural gas production that will add a further 16 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to existing expansion plans, bringing total capacity to 142 mtpa.

The Qatari announcement comes as US gas prices trade near an all-time low if adjusted to inflation after a decade of meteoric rises in output which made the US one of the top oil and gas exporters.