Oman has awarded three energy contracts worth a total $136 million to international firms in a bid to raise gas production and arrest a decline in oil output, oil officials said on Monday.
A spokesman from state-run Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) told Reuters it had awarded India's Punj Lloyd a $56 million contract to build a 260-km (162-mile) gas pipeline from central Oman to the eastern coastal town of Sur with a Omani partner Al Hassan Engineering.
PDO also signed a four-year extension deal with US company Weatherford International worth $40 million to drill for oil in the Nimr field in southern Oman.
Canadian firm Precision Drilling Corp won the third contract worth $40 million to drill for oil at Lekhwair field.
Oman LNG is producing 6.6 million tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from two trains, the technical term for an LNG production and processing unit. It is building a third train that would increase its output by 50 percent to 9.9 million tonnes per year.
"The gas pipeline would supply Oman LNG with the extra gas its needs for the third train while the crude oil drillings would help us get back in track to arrest oil decline," said the official from PDO, the sole provider of natural gas to Oman LNG.
PDO's crude output fell to 703,000 bpd in 2003 from 771,000 bpd a year earlier. Oman's oil minister has he expects the company to produce 650,000 bpd this year but would increase its output by 50,000 bpd per year from 2005.
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