It has always been an axiom of world energy markets that Persian Gulf oil is both easy and cheap to produce. The crude that gushes from the scorching desert sands of Saudi Arabia, for example, is widely thought to cost less than $5 a barrel to produce, compared to the $70 price tag on raising a barrel from deep Atlantic waters.

   But many of the Persian Gulf oilfields have been producing for decades, and an increasing number of the newer fields in the region contain heavier and harder-to-extract crudes. Squeezing out the remaining reserves from some existing fields and developing new, more complicated ones will be costlier and will require more advanced technology, according to analysts and oilfield engineers.

     As a result, more Gulf countries are exploring the use of enhanced oil recovery, or EOR, a collection of technologies that coaxes substantially more oil from the ground by injecting steam, gas and chemicals deep below the surface.

     "The Middle East countries have varying levels of maturity in their fields," said Chris Graham, a Middle East analyst at Edinburgh-based oil consultancy Wood Mackenzie. While the major OPEC producers in the region mostly don't need to use EOR techniques, the situation is different for the smaller non-OPEC producers such as Oman and Bahrain. In those countries, "you've got maturing production profiles and each barrel becomes more difficult and more costly to extract," Graham said. And even the large OPEC producers such as Kuwait have started to turn to EOR technology as they seek to develop new, more complex, heavy-crude reservoirs on which they will have to rely for future production growth. EOR tends to be needed most when oil is heavy--sometimes as thick as asphalt--and only flows when it is melted with steam, as is the case in some of Kuwait's yet-to-be-developed fields.

     "EOR will become over the years an important component of what the industry collectively has to develop," said Jean-Luc Guizion, president of exploration and production at Total. "The luck of the Middle East countries is they have a lot of resources so they have ample time to plan the necessary EOR improvement."

     According to technicians at one company with EOR operations, the methods can improve recovery rates in some fields by 40%, but at an additional cost of anywhere between $20 and $60 per barrel of oil.

     In the so-called Partitioned Neutral Zone, shared between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Chevron is involved in an EOR scheme aimed at developing heavier crudes using steamflooding. Abu Dhabi Co. for Onshore Oil Exploration is working on an EOR project involving carbon dioxide injection. And Saudi Aramco is working on plans to implement a CO2 EOR demonstration plant in the next two years, although this project is, for now, aimed at trapping emissions rather than boosting recovery rates.

     EOR techniques have been in use since the 1970s, when they mostly involved injecting seawater into reservoirs in order to maintain pressure and squeeze more oil from the porous, sponge-like rock where it is deposited. Now there's a far more diverse range of techniques on offer and experts say that each field requires its own mix of EOR techniques that can only be determined by complex analysis of field conditions and economics.

     In the ancient and complex Marmul block in Oman, for instance, the oil is heavy and viscous. To improve the mix of oil and water in the field, the operating company, Petroleum Development Oman, which is 34% owned by Shell, injected polymer into the reservoir, allowing the crude to flow more freely and improving recovery by 10%.

     Bahrain's energy minister Abdul Hussain bin Ali Mirza says his country's aging Bahrain field--where EOR boosted output from an average of 29,000 barrels a day to a level of 40,000 barrels a day within a year--will see output hit 100,000 barrels a day within seven years.

      However, while Middle East producers are starting to take a closer look at EOR, many are handicapped by the reliance of the technology on gas, which is sometimes used as an injectant and sometimes burned to generate another common injectant, steam. Despite massive reserves in countries like Qatar, natural gas is in short supply in most other countries in the region due to its increased usage in power generation and in industries such as petrochemicals.

      Accordingly, there is a new focus on alternative technology solutions, including the use of solar power to generate steam for injecting into oilfields.

     One such new technology has been developed by Glasspoint, a U.S.-based company that says it can generate steam using the sun's heat at lower cost than by burning gas. It locates the solar installations inside large commercial greenhouses, which protect the delicate panels from harsh desert winds, according to Rod MacGregor, the company's chief executive.

   President Obama, facing voter anger over high gasoline prices and complaints from Republicans and business leaders that his policies are restricting the development of domestic energy resources, announced on Saturday that he was taking several steps to speed oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters.

     It was at least a partial concession to his critics, who say he has shackled domestic energy development at a time when consumers are paying near-record prices at the gas pump. The Republican-led House passed three bills in the last 10 days that would significantly expand and accelerate oil development in the United States, saying the administration was driving up gas prices and preventing job creation with anti-drilling policies.

     Administration officials said the president's announcement was designed in part to answer these arguments, signal flexibility and demonstrate Mr. Obama's commitment to reducing oil imports by boosting domestic production. But in fact the policies announced Saturday would not have an immediate effect on supply or prices, nor would they quickly open any new areas to drilling.

     The president's turn to a domestic pocketbook issue comes after two weeks of intense focus on the killing of Osama bin Laden, terrorism more broadly and the multiple crises in the Middle East. In his weekly radio and Internet address, the president said the administration would begin to hold annual auctions for oil and gas leases in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, a 23-million-acre tract on the North Slope. The move comes after years of demands for the auctions by industry executives and Alaska's two senators, Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and Mark Begich, a Democrat.

     The administration will also accelerate a review of the environmental impact of possible drilling off the southern and central Atlantic coast and will consider making some areas available for exploration. The move marks a change from current policy, which puts the entire Atlantic seaboard off limits to drilling until at least 2018.

     The president also said he would extend leases already granted for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean off Alaska that had been frozen after last year's BP spill. The extension will allow companies time to meet new safety and environmental standards without having to worry about their leases expiring.

     The government will also provide incentives for oil companies to more quickly exploit leases they already hold. Tens of millions of acres onshore and offshore are under lease but have not been developed. The moves come after the House passed a series of bills that would force the administration to move much further and faster to open public lands and waters to oil and gas development. The administration had formally opposed the bills as written, but officials said Friday that the White House might accept some provisions in the bills, like extending the frozen leases in the gulf and in Alaska.

   Responding to the shift by the administration, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker John A. Boehner, said, "The president just conceded what his party on Capitol Hill still denies: more American energy production will lower costs and create jobs. This reversal is striking, since his administration has consistently blocked American-made energy."

     Although Mr. Buck characterized the policy changes as "not terribly substantial," he added that they should "pave the way for legislation, like the bills the House passed in the past two weeks, to reduce the damage from the restrictions he imposed in the past." The president, in his address, said he supported increased domestic oil and gas development, if it was done safely and responsibly. "Last year, America's oil production reached its highest level since 2003," he said. "But I believe that we should expand oil production in America, even as we increase safety and environmental standards."

     The Alaskan petroleum reserve was set aside in the 1920s as a source of oil for the Navy. There have been fewer than a dozen lease sales there; the most recent one, in 2010, drew only modest industry interest. The government has lowered its estimate of recoverable oil under that vast tract, and the Obama administration is leaving large areas untouched because of their ecological and wildlife value.

     Response from environmental advocates was relatively muted. Eric Myers, Alaska policy director for the National Audubon Society, said that conservationists were willing to see an increase in drilling in the Alaskan petroleum reserve as long as it did not threaten wildlife, waters or sensitive lands. The more environmentally sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska will remain off-limits to oil and gas drillers, administration officials said Friday.

     The president noted in his address that the Justice Department had formed a task force to look into potential market manipulation or excessive speculation in oil, and he repeated his call for a repeal of the $4 billion a year in tax incentives the oil industry receives. "In the last few months, the biggest oil companies made about $4 billion in profits each week," Mr. Obama said. "And yet, they get $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies each year. Four billion dollars at a time when Americans can barely fill up their tanks. Four billion dollars at a time when we're trying to reduce our deficit."

     Next week, the Senate will take up a Democratic bill to remove a portion of those subsides, but it is not expected to become law because of united Republican opposition in both chambers of Congress. Mr. Obama's last four weekly addresses have been about oil prices, industry profits and alternative energy programs.

    Oil bulls and bears continued to jockey for position in the options market, with longer-term oil optimists staking out the session's largest single trade in defiance of crude's tailspin.

     In a volatile two week for oil prices, options traders have alternated between bullish "calls" and bearish "puts" in exchange-traded funds tied to crude-producing companies. Crude-oil futures dipped below $100 a barrel again Friday, down precipitously from two-and-a-half-year highs hit early last week. Wild swings in oil prices have brought out hedgers and speculators to the options market with force, with bears generally in control of most trades.