Oman Sweetens Terms In A Bid To Entice IOCs To ‘Complex Assets’

8 Nov 2024 Issue: 67 / 45 By: James Marriott

Oman’s complex geology and limited to-date offshore exploration is spurring the energy ministry to offer ‘more flexible’ royalty agreements in a bid to spur investment in enhanced oil recovery, unconventional gas, and deepwater offshore development, Raya al-Abri, the ministry’s Director of Concessions tells MEES*

Compared to those of its neighbors Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Oman’s oil and gas reserves are more fragmented and difficult to extract due to complex geology. This makes upstream exploration and development challenging and has spurred firms operating in Oman, in particular state-led Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), to pioneer unique development techniques including enhanced oil recovery (MEES, 5 July).

The sultanate also possesses sizeable unconventional gas assets including the massive 1.5bn cfd Khazzan & Ghazeer tight gas development which, when it started up in 2017 helped spur a renaissance in Oman’s gas output culminating in a record 5.2bn cfd for the first half of this year (MEES, 26 July). Most recently Oman awarded the Block 15 tight gas play to Omani-Chinese JV Daleel Petroleum after listing it in a bid round last year (MEES, 6 September). (CONTINUED - 1477 WORDS)