Muscat: Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has discovered four oil fields in the north of Oman in Ufuq and Dafiq, and in the south at Sakhiya-South West and Mamour, according to a company press release issued on Saturday.
"The new discoveries would contribute to the sustainability of PDO's oil production," it said.
The discovery of Ufuq and Dafiq, located near the Lekhwair oil field, validates the extension of the productive Upper Shuaiba reservoir rock formation that PDO's geologists and geophysicists had proposed after the discovery of the Malaan field in 2004.
"The finds hold out the prospect of further discoveries in the formation, and the current drilling campaign will see up to 16 additional wells drilled over the next 18 months," the statement from the oil company said.
The finds are also noteworthy in that both discovery wells were contributing to PDO's oil production within two months of being found.
The two discoveries in the south Sakhiya-SW and Mamour will be brought on stream as part of the ongoing Harweel field development.
The reservoirs of both fields are deep and under high pressure; they are among the oldest oil-bearing reservoirs in the world, formed during the pre-Cambrian era about 500 million years ago.
At a recent briefing for the press, John Malcolm, managing director of PDO, expressed his confidence that "there are still some oil and gas fields out there that remain to be discovered," not only close to existing infrastructure but also in the more remote parts of PDO's concession area.
"This is a very important result for PDO and its shareholders. Such discoveries, whose ultimate reserves can be measured in perhaps tens rather than hundreds of millions of barrels, will provide valuable robustness to our production levels in the medium term.
"It is also great to see that the discoveries are rapidly hooked up for development and are already contributing to the oil production of the company in the short term," said Malcolm yesterday.
Dr Martin St?uble, Exploration director of PDO, commented: "I am extremely pleased with these discoveries, which directly resulted from high-quality technical work based on state-of-the-art seismic analyses and other data not available in earlier exploration campaigns. Several follow-up opportunities have been identified, and we will pursue those aggressively."
By Staff Report
© Gulf News 2006
