Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) and Shell Oman opened a New Wells Learning Centre on Tuesday in renewed attempts to maintain oil output and improve production.
PDO’s new facility is aimed at improving the quality of oil well management and increasing safety in the oilfields.
The New Wells Learning Centre will also be used as a training hub for both experienced wells professionals and new recruits.
“Since the Gulf of Mexico disaster in 2010, it has become an industry requirement to introduce Well Operation Crew Resource Management training to test the ability of crews and individuals to work together under pressure and this facility will enable us to do this,” said Hamed Al Hadhrami, PDO learning and development manager.
The joint venture between state-run PDO and Shell Oman was opened at PDO’s Mina Al Fahal headquarters by Dr Mohammed bin Hamad Al Rumhy, the Minister of Oil and Gas.
“This is an example of Shell’s long-standing partnership with Oman and with PDO in particular. The world class training centre will further enhance well engineering in Oman and produce highly skilled Omani well engineers, who will not only help the sustainable and efficient development of Oman’s oil and gas resources but will also be highly competitive internationally,” said Chris Breeze, country chairman of Shell Oman.
The New Wells Learning Centre will also focus on addressing the challenges of using unconventional oil recovery techniques.
Oman, and PDO in particular, is the region’s pioneer in using Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), the method used to extract stranded oil from the ground through certain unconventional extraction processes.
Major EOR developments at Marmul, Qarn Alam and Harweel contributed to PDO’s oil output in 2013, which stood at 1.25mn bopd.
PDO’s current oil production has more than halved in recent months standing about 550,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd).
Earlier this year the state-run company said it is planning to maintain high output despite the drop in oil prices.
PDO’s investment in EOR programmes has remained high as the company launched a number of EOR pilots at Fahud, Lekhwair, Nimr, Al Noor, Marmul, Amin and Ghubar oilfields.
