12 April 2010
MUSCAT: Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) plans to produce 150,000 barrels of oil per day from its Mukhaizna oil field in south-central Oman by 2012 from about 100,000 barrels per day at present, a top official said.

The field produced 14,000 barrels per day in the initial stages and now produces about 95,000 barrels per day although the average daily output over the last seven days were 103,000 barrels, the company's president, Bill Albrecht said.

At the Mukhaizna field, Oxy has implemented an aggressive drilling and development program including a major "pattern steam flood project" for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). "We are looking at a target plateau of 150,000 barrels (per day) by 2012 (in terms of production)," he said.

He was speaking at the inauguration of the Oil & Gas West Asia (OGWA) 2010, an exhibition and conference for the region's hydrocarbon industry. Earlier in the day, the event was inaugurated by Naseer Bin Khamis Al Jashmi, undersecretary of the oil and gas ministry.

Around 250 companies from more than 35 countries are participating in the event, to be held from April 11 to April 13, 2010. The accompanying conference, organised by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), would focus on enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods and technologies and is termed as the biggest such conference in the Middle East.

According to officials of Omanexpo, the organisers of the event, the strong local and international participation reflected the importance of oil and gas industry in Oman as all countries in the Middle East continue to boost their upstream, midstream and downstream operations. The leading exhibitors are the national oil companies such as Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Bahrain Petroelum Company (BAPCO) and Qatar Petroleum.

Petrogas E&P
Private sector upstream energy firm Petrogas E&P has increased the output of Daleel Petroleum Company to 25,000 barrels per day through water injection as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method, Usama Barwani, director (new business development) of MB Holding Company LLC.

Petrogas E&P is the holding company for MB Holding's exploration and production activities in Oman and overseas. Daleel Petroleum is an equal stakes joint venture between Petrogas and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and operates Block - 5 in Oman which produced less than 4,000 barrels per day in 2002, he said.

The joint venture has produced over 20 million barrels of oil from the field and the proven reserves are in excess of 100 million barrels, especially with the implementation of a water-flood in the Daleel field Shuaiba reservoir. Petrogas, through Petrogas Rima, also manages and operates the PDO's Block - 6, a cluster of nine producing fields and nine unconnected single-well discoveries.

© Times of Oman 2010