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Oman announces new oil and gas discoveries

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) said it had found "significant new volumes" of oil at the Budour Northeast oil field, which was itself discovered only last year. In addition, the company may also have found a significant volume of oil in a rock formation at the Rabab-Southeast field, also near Birba.

The new discovery at the Budour Northeast field was revealed by Buduor NE-2, a well drilled in 2007 to follow up the field's original discovery well, Budour NE-1.

It consists of a reservoir lying below the one tapped by the Budour NE-1. When tested, Budour NE-2 produced as much as 5,800 barrels of oil per day. "Both Budour NE wells - as well as a third drilled in the same area - have been hooked up to PDO's pipeline infrastructure, thereby contributing to the country's production," PDO Managing Director John Malcolm told a news conference.

"An aggressive appraisal drilling programme will now be executed for Budour Northeast, and we will be drilling a half-dozen new exploration wells in that area," he added.

The oil at Rabab-Southeast was discovered by an exploration well, which is still being tested. The results of the well test still remain to be evaluated.

"The discovery of these reservoirs goes a long way towards realising PDO's aspiration of replacing produced volumes in any give year with new reserves," Malcolm said.

One of the two new "significant" gas finds is in a new field and the other in an extension to an existing field.

The newly discovered field - Simr - is located about 20 kilometres north of the existing Saih Nihayda gas field, where PDO operates one of its four gas processing plants on behalf of the Government of Oman.

"Because of the field's close proximity to existing gas processing infrastructure, it will be rapidly appraised and hooked up to deliver gas to Oman," Malcolm said.

The field extension was discovered by the exploration appraisal well Burhaan West-3, he added. "The well is currently being tested with very encouraging results," he further said. The Burhaan West field is located northeast of Simr.

Both the Simr-1 discovery well and the Burhaan W-3 well had to drill through five kilometres of rock to reach the same gas-bearing reservoir formation at their different geographic locations.

"Gas is very important for the growing economy of Oman," Malcolm said, "and I am pleased that PDO can contribute to this growth by delivering new gas volumes."