22 March 2016
Muscat - Miraah thermal project is very significant for the sultanate and the company Glasspoint, Rod MacGregor (pictured), president and CEO, GlassPoint, told the Observer in an interview yesterday. The one gigawatt solar thermal project will harness the sun's energy to produce an average of 6,000 tonnes of steam per day, replacing a sizeable portion of valuable gas. He said the project when completed involves one of the largest solar fields in the world and will help its client PDO to cut reduce costs as 60 per cent of the expenses for either fuel or steam related.
Despite the higher crude prices at the time of negotiations, MacGregor said the PDO was very innovative in its approach and Oman, anyway, is a leader in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).
Decisions on long-term projects for a periods extending over 20 to 30 years are not purely made on the current conditions.
"Oman things long-term and this plant will help more people locally," he said.
Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and California are the focus areas for the company because of the presence of heavy oil and also sunshine.
"Canada has lots of heavy oil but no sunshine and UAE, for example, is blessed with sunshine but no heavy oil."
He added that the current low level prices of commodities have helped the company to reduce overall costs in the project. The first phase will be operational by 2017.
Glasspoint is a privately-owned company and employs around 150 people across locations.
"We will seek to double our staff strength to 300 for this project, but majority of the ground employees are generally handled by the sub-contractors," he added.
GlassPoint's technology can reduce the natural gas used to extract heavy oil by up to 80 per cent, a process called solar enhanced oil recovery (EOR). By using solar, the gas saved can be redirected to meet rising demand for power generation, desalination, industrial development and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.
Solar EOR can also generate significant in-country value, creating new opportunities in supply chain development, manufacturing capability, employment and training.
Muscat - Miraah thermal project is very significant for the sultanate and the company Glasspoint, Rod MacGregor (pictured), president and CEO, GlassPoint, told the Observer in an interview yesterday. The one gigawatt solar thermal project will harness the sun's energy to produce an average of 6,000 tonnes of steam per day, replacing a sizeable portion of valuable gas. He said the project when completed involves one of the largest solar fields in the world and will help its client PDO to cut reduce costs as 60 per cent of the expenses for either fuel or steam related.
Despite the higher crude prices at the time of negotiations, MacGregor said the PDO was very innovative in its approach and Oman, anyway, is a leader in Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR).
Decisions on long-term projects for a periods extending over 20 to 30 years are not purely made on the current conditions.
"Oman things long-term and this plant will help more people locally," he said.
Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and California are the focus areas for the company because of the presence of heavy oil and also sunshine.
"Canada has lots of heavy oil but no sunshine and UAE, for example, is blessed with sunshine but no heavy oil."
He added that the current low level prices of commodities have helped the company to reduce overall costs in the project. The first phase will be operational by 2017.
Glasspoint is a privately-owned company and employs around 150 people across locations.
"We will seek to double our staff strength to 300 for this project, but majority of the ground employees are generally handled by the sub-contractors," he added.
GlassPoint's technology can reduce the natural gas used to extract heavy oil by up to 80 per cent, a process called solar enhanced oil recovery (EOR). By using solar, the gas saved can be redirected to meet rising demand for power generation, desalination, industrial development and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.
Solar EOR can also generate significant in-country value, creating new opportunities in supply chain development, manufacturing capability, employment and training.
© Oman Daily Observer 2016
