Damascus - Syria has opened a new oil and gas processing station to help boost the country's production capacity, local media reported Sunday.

The Hayyan station opened Saturday near the city of Palmyra, some 200 kilometres north-east of Damascus. It has the capacity to process 600 barrels of oil per day and 650,000 cubic meters of gas.

Oil Minister Sufyan al-Allawi said the cost of the project was about 450 million dollars.

Another new station with a production capacity of 3.7 million cubic metres of natural gas is scheduled to open in 2011, officials said.

Syria's oil and gas output in recent years has been in decline, but with local consumption on the increase, the country has embarked on new projects to discover and process more natural resources.