Bahrain recently made its first shipment of ultra-low sulphur diesel of less than 10 parts per million (ppm), the country's Minister of Oil and Gas Affairs said on Tuesday.

'We celebrated the first shipment of the 10 ppm last Saturday,' Abdul-Hussain bin Ali Mirza said in a speech to an industry conference. He did not say where the shipment went to.

The cost of the project was $725 million, Mirza said.

'...Apart from being a technical and environmental success, financially the project provided a return in excess of 25 per cent,' Mirza said.

Mirza said Bahrain will inaugurate by the end of this month a $150 million gas desulphurisation project.

'This project removes the emissions from refining to meet standards set in California, the most environmentally sensitive location in the world,' he said.

Bahrain allocated $1.2 billion to produce high value-added environmentally friendly oil products, Mirza added.-Reuters