French oil company Total is eyeing Oman’s Block 41 for new offshore oil and gas deposits, Zawya news agency has reported.
The international giant has pledged to deploy cutting-edge technology to explore the hydrocarbon potential of the Sultanate’s north-eastern coast.
François Bichon, CLOV Project Director — Total E&P Angola, said the new has come as Total is looking to acquire new offshore territories in Oman.
“Since 1937, Total has been a long-standing partner of Oman in the development of its oil and gas industry.
“We are now actively looking for additional blocks where we could apply our expertise and contribute to increasing the reserves and then the subsequent production in Oman,” he told the Observer.
Bichon is due in Muscat this week to showcase Total’s ground-breaking CLOV project in Angola at the Offshore Development Oman conference set to take place on 9th and 10th of December.
The two-day event is aimed at bringing offshore opportunities in the Sultanate to light.
Last December, the group’s local subsidiary Total Exploration and Production Oman Petroleum BV, signed an Exploration & Production Sharing Agreement (EPSA) with the Omani government for offshore Block 41.
The concession is located northwest of Muscat and covers a large unexplored area of almost 24,000 sq km in water depths ranging from 30 to more than 3,000m.
According to Bichon, the company has made headway since then in the acquisition of new data from the ultra-deep waters of this block.
“The first steps mainly involved acquiring additional data, to complement existing data, aimed at de-risking the drilling of the well.
“Seabed coring was carried out and shallow subsurface geological samples were collected using a weighted corer lowered from the side of a special-purpose vessel. Geochemical studies were carried out on these cores to assess the area’s potential,” he explained.
Bichon said that in 2015 Total’s deep offshore production will represent as much as 10% of all deep-water production in the world, with around 400 subsea wells.
In the Sultanate, Total has a 4% stake in Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) from whose Block 6 concession is produced much of the country’s oil and gas output.
The Group also has a 5.54% stake in Oman LNG and a 2.04% stake in Qalhat LNG.
