Giving up on oil? Oman opens 'state-of -the-art' 1.3 billion gas plant

Oman Oil Company Exploration and Production (OOCEP) recently opened a $1.3 billion gas field and a state-of-the-art processing plant in Abu Butabul, a report said.

The plant has a capacity for commercial export of 27 million cu ft per day of natural gas and 2,500 barrels per day of condensates.

The total investment in the present phase will reach $2.5 billion once the remaining work is completed, the Times of Oman report said.

Salem bin Zahir Al Sibani, chief executive officer of OOCEP, was quoted as saying that natural gas and condensate production would gradually reach 70 MMscfd and 6,000bpd, respectively, by the middle of this year.

"The investment in the project amounted to $1.3 billion until the end of 2014. Development will continue as per the first plan for the project to reach about $2.5 billion," he added.

"The project was completed in a record time of three years and is considered a global record at this stage. The Sultanate is one of the first countries in the region to extract non-conventional gas from deep reservoirs,” he added.

The newly built gas processing plant, with a capacity to treat 90 MMscfd of gas, 6,000 bpd of condensates and 2,000 bpd of water, was commissioned on September 23, 2014enabling processing and export of unconventional tight gas into the Government Gas System.

Al Sibani explained the overall development of the Barik gas reservoir included preparation of geological studies and drilling of hydraulically fractured 80 wells at a depth of 4.5 km, so that the gas can go out of its tight reservoir.

"While the condensate is transported to PDO facilities, the gas is exported to the government gas system run by Oman Gas Company,” he added.