Friday 15 / November / 2024
Photos by Jun Estrada
PDO plans to produce 600,000 barrels of oil a day this year
Mobin Mathew Blesson
MUSCAT: State-owned Petroleum Development Oman, which accounts for around 70 per cent of the country's total crude oil production, is looking at producing 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd), said the company’s Managing Director.
“PDO is trying to raise its output to 600,000 barrels per day, which we originally planned for 2019,” Raoul Restucci said on the sidelines of the Oil & Gas Year Oman 2016 sixth strategic roundtable.
“In January to March, we were not able to reach our target because of the bad weather and we hope we can catch up in the coming months,” he added.
“With the sharp fall in global oil prices, PDO still managed to surpass expectations right across the business,” he continued.
Average oil production of PDO for 2015 was 588,937 bpd, the highest since 2005 and almost 14,000 bpd above the planned target.
Gas production was 83 million cubic metres a day, one million cubic metres above the planned target, as the company stepped up its effort to meet growing national gas demand.
Speaking about the current oil price, Restucci said; “We are near$50 now; for PDO it is a very profitable number.”
According to him, the average cost of production for the first grade oil is $5 per barrel, for the second grade it is $12 and for the third grade is $25.
“Most of our projects are very attractive, all of our projects generate double digit returns even at the low prices,” Restucci confirmed.
Sixth strategic roundtable, organised by the Oil & Gas Year in partnership with Oman’s Ministry of Oil and Gas and the Oman Society for Petroleum Services (Opal), was attended by several representatives from local services companies.
Led by Salim Al Aufi, undersecretary at the Ministry of Oil and Gas, participants who attended the strategic roundtable discussed on several issues in the industry and how to cope with it.
Speaking about the initiatives taken to manage the current oil crisis, Al Aufi said; “Government’s aim is to reduce the expenditure for production of oil, not the production and the ministry has asked the companies to protect the job of nationals.”
“Production of oil and gas in the Sultanate stayed high,” he added.
While answering a question about Omanisation, Al Aufi said; “It is not considered as a barrier, but it should be considered as an advantage.”
“We have a lot of good talents available in Sultanate. If we are short of Omani manpower, the blame should be on everybody because we haven’t invested in developing the right technical capabilities that we need to run our business,” he added.
Wesel Wessels of OOMCO, Barry Gran of ABB, Mohammed Al Jawahari of Hydrocarbon Finder, Raoul Restucci from PDO, Robert Swain of Occidental Oman, Hans Erings from Gulfar Engineering and Rod Macdregor of Glasspoint were the panel members who participated in the round table discussion.
