Oman’s PDO Details Renewable Plans Aimed At Driving Down Emissions

8 Sep 2023 Issue: 66 / 36 By: James Marriott

PDO is rolling out large-scale renewables to power its operations in a bid to continue driving down the carbon intensity of its operations while at the same time increasing its use of energy-intensive enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

Oman’s state-led Petroleum Development Oman (PDO: Energy Development Oman 60%, Shell 34%, TotalEnergies 4%, PTTEP 2%) intends for 30% of its power requirements to come from renewable projects by 2026. This represents a significant increase from around 10% currently, but is a slight delay from its previous 2025 target. PDO currently has around 1.6GW of generation capacity across its operations, and 30% of this would equate to 480MW of renewable power.

The primary reason the renewables target has been pushed back appears to be delays to the 100MW Riyah-1 wind farm. Riyah-1 had been slated for 1Q 2024 start-up (MEES, 23 September 2022), but is now due online in 2Q 2026. PDO has also provided additional details for the 100MW Riyah-2 project, which it says is due online in 4Q 2026. These will form the backbone of PDO’s renewable target alongside the 100MW Amin solar PV plant which started up in 2020 (MEES, 5 June 2020). (CONTINUED - 892 WORDS)