Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has received shareholder approval to advance with the full development of the Mabrouk field.

The new field development plan for the field, which was discovered in 1979 and is currently producing around 8,000 barrels per day (bpd), calls for the drilling of up to 80 new wells and the construction of a new production station and gathering system.
The project is being fast-tracked so that the additional incremental production is expected onstream in late 2009.
When all the new hardware has been fully commissioned, the field is expected to produce around 15-20,000 bpd of oil and 1-2 million cubic metres a day of gas. The gas will be delivered to the Saih Rawl gas processing plant where it will enter the Government Gas System.
The project has been split into two engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) packages which will be carried out under existing service agreements.
Work on “on plot” facilities (those erected at the field site) will be carried out by in-house engineering and maintenance contractor Integrated Engineering & Construction Company while “off plot” facilities (the oil and water flowlines and associated hardware outside of the field site) will be executed by Galfar Engineering & Contracting.
To date, just one per cent of the oil-in-place at Mabrouk has been produced. The full-field development plan will increase the recovery factor to around 10-12 per cent.
“This is an important project that will help sustain PDO’s oil production over the long term,” said PDO managing director, John Malcolm.
“It highlights the continued potential for conventional oil production in the Sultanate.”
Meanwhile, India’s Reliance Industries plans to drill exploratory oil and gas wells on its offshore Block 18 in Oman toward the end of the year, a report said.
Reliance would be the first oil company to conduct deepwater drilling offshore Oman.
“We are planning to commence drilling of two or three wells by December or early in January 2008. We will drill in water depths ranging from 600-1,000 metres, with well depths going a further 2,500-3,000 metres,” Sameer Al-Zadjali, manager of Reliance’s local subsidiary, said.
Reliance signed a deepwater exploration and production sharing agreement for Block 18 with the Oman government in March 2005 and has a 100 per cent working interest on the concession.
Last December the company completed 2D and 3D seismic studies on the block. “Deepwater exploration has its challenges...exploration and production costs are 2-3 times higher than onshore exploration. But Reliance has the expertise and resources to explore for oil and gas in deep water. We are well-geared for the challenges of deepwater exploration,” Zadjali said.
Zadjali said Reliance was also hoping to conclude a deal with the government for a second offshore block in the near future.
The 23,800 sq km Block 41 extends offshore from the Muscat coast.
In another development, Swedish upstream minnow Tethys Oil has completed testing on the Jebel Aswad re-entry on Block 15 in Oman striking hydrocarbons on two separate reservoirs.
The Natih limestone penetrated a total of 848 metres of hydrocarbon-bearing limestone in a horizontal sidetrack that had a total measured depth of 3,830 metres, the company said in a statement.
On testing, the Natih flowed 11,030 mcfd and 793 barrels per day (bpd) of 57API condensate (total of 2,626 boed) through a one-inch choke. The flow rates were constrained due to production tubing size restriction.
The Shuaiba could not be fully tested due to a faulty down hole motor that prevented the well from being steered horizontally into the productive layers. However, wet gas was produced during the underbalanced drilling phase of the Shuaiba.
Tethys Oil is the operator of Block 15 with a 40 per cent interest and is partnered on the block by Danish company Odin Energi.
Block 15 is an appraisal project and covers an area of 1,389 sq km in the north central area of Oman.
It contains two discovery wells and estimated oil in-place of more than 50 million barrels, with an expected recovery ratio of between five and 20 per cent.
The Jebel Aswad well is located eight km from a regional natural gas pipeline crossing the block.