Occidental Petroleum production in Oman has tripled over the last ten years, making the company the largest independent oil producer in the Sultanate, a high-ranking executive has said.
The US oil company, which operates a significant number of fields in Oman, produced a total of 800mn barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe) over the past thirty years, the executive said.
Last year alone production in the Sultanate totalled around 83mn barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe), 27,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), Robert Swain, senior vice president and general manager, Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy) Oman, was reported as saying by Times of Oman.
“Over the years we have identified hydrocarbon reserves in Oxy blocks of over 3bn barrels of oil equivalent based on a combination of successful exploration and reservoir characterisation projects,” said Swain.
“To date we have cumulatively produced more than 800 million barrels of oil equivalent,” he added in a recent presentation on the company’s expanding operations in the Sultanate.
Oxy is the operator of Block 9 (65% working interest), Block 27 (65% working interest), Block 53 (45% working interest) and Block 62 (48% working interest).
The company’s main output comes from the Mukhaizna heavy oilfield (Block 53) which it has operated under a 30-year agreement with the Omani government since 2005.
The Mukhaizna oilfield, according to Swain, has over three billion barrels of oil in place in both heavy oil sands and fractured carbonates.
Since 2005, Oxy has drilled more than 2,400 new wells and installed facilities to support its steam flood project.
“We are now the largest heavy oil steam flood in the Middle East, and we recently commenced exploration of both shallow and deeper zones in the block. We are testing the first wells as we speak, and look forward to the results,” the Senior VP and General Manager said.
Another key contributor to Oxy’s hydrocarbon production is Block 9, where output from the Safah and Wadi Latham fields currently averages around 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), said Swain.
Underpinning this output is a combination of over 1100 wells and continued exploration success building out from the main Safah discovery into multiple smaller fields that are connected to the existing production infrastructure, he added.
In adjoining Block 27, Oxy has drilled more than 67 wells to tap the hydrocarbon potential of the Khamilah field. Discovered in 2005, the field has a reserves potential of around 200 million barrels of oil equivalent in place, with output currently averaging 10,000 boepd.
Oxy has also made headway in the development of two fields within the Discovered Non-Associated Gas (DNAG) Area in Block 62.
Earlier the company said it is moving ahead with an Extended Production Test facility targeting two key gas fields.
“We are drilling development wells right now while upgrading and installing a gas plant to handle that production. We will have first gas production by the end of 2015,” said Swain.
Throughout 2014, Oxy reported a total of eight new oil and gas discoveries that added an estimated 19mn barrels of oil equivalent to its hydrocarbon reserves.
In Q2, 2015, Oxy made three oil discoveries in Block 9 and four in Block 27, and found gas and condensate reserves in Block 62.
The company completed a 3D seismic acquisition in Blocks 9 and 27.
