BP to Invest $24 bn in Oman Tight Gas Project

BP is expected to invest close to $24 billion for the first phase full-field development of its block 61 tight gas fields in north-central Oman.

Shaikh Ali bin Thabit Al Battashi, Adviser to the Ministry of Oil and Gas said first phase of the development programme is spread over a 25 year-concession period and aimed at producing 6.7 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas, Times of Oman reported. First gas is expected to flow by 2017.

"The upfront investment of $24 billion will cover most of the investments required for phase II development programme as well because the second phase will be for drilling of wells. Facilities like a central gas processing plant will come up in the first phase itself,”added Shaikh Al Battashi.

The plan is to drill 282 wells of which ten wells are currently being prepared for fracking, the newspaper said citing another official.

Now BP is drilling 12th well and one more is to be drilled soon. Few wells have been hooked up through early production facilities and BP is trying to assess the productivity of the wells. They use the information to update the model and the whole full-field model will be used to predict the overall production for the entire field.

The British energy giant signed a major exploration and production sharing agreement with the government of Oman in January 2007 for the appraisal and development of Block 61 and the Khazzan and Makarem gas fields. The agreement covers an area of some 2,800 square kilometres in central Oman, which contains a number of tight gas reservoirs which were first discovered in the 1990s.