Petroleum Development Oman announces plans to ramp up production

After setting a 550,000 bpd ten-year plateau commitment over the last decade, PDO has consistently grown production and is confident of delivery of further production growth. This comes after it confirmed that 2018 yielded its highest oil output since 2005 of 610,170 bpd, despite the impact of Cyclone Mekunu last May, which disrupted production in the south of its concession area.

Speaking at the annual media briefing of the Ministry of Oil and Gas at the Oman Convention & Exhibition Centre, PDO’s managing director Raoul Restucci said, “Our approach has been simple: To stay the course in the face of oil price uncertainty and increasing technical and operational scale challenges. Increasing value delivery for the nation’s development and preparing the business to face changing energy expectations. This means more sustainable oil and gas, driving energy efficiency in all aspects of our operations.”

He said during 2018, PDO successfully delivered a combined daily oil, gas and condensate output of 1.205mn bpd. “As we head into the next decade, we are stepping up the deployment of new technology and pursuing ever more efficient ways of working to achieve enhanced productivity in our exploration and production business.”

Restucci said that while oil and gas will continue to be fundamental to PDO’s energy mix, the company is developing innovative renewable solutions to create new growth opportunities. “This has us increasing emphasis on renewables, such as solar, whilst leveraging new technology and improving our overall energy efficiency.”

He said ‘good progress’ was being made on both PDO’s mega projects at Rabab Harweel and Yibal Khuff with the former, the largest capital project in PDO’s history, expected to come on stream in mid-2019, representing a reserve add of more than 500mn barrels of oil equivalent. The latter, an integrated sour oil and gas development, is scheduled for start-up in 2021, developing in excess of 327mn barrels of oil equivalent.

Despite the increased complexity in 2018 drilling scope, PDO’s Well Engineering Directorate delivered 600 new wells and achieved the best ever recorded cost per metre drilled in PDO’s history (four per cent lower than 2017). By the end of 2018, the directorate had carried out 22,400 completion and well intervention activities – the highest number ever recorded with the same number of resources as previous years.

PDO also ramped up its in-country value programme, awarding contracts worth US$3.7bn to nationally registered firms, retaining a value in country of 44 per cent, and supporting the opening of new Oman-based workshops and factories to service the domestic oil and gas sector.