Oman: EOR programme kick-started with $1bn contract

AFTER YEARS on the drawing board, Oman launched a major enhanced oil recovery (EOR) programme in November with the award of a three-year engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to UAE-based Petrofac International. The project's aim is to boost production at the Harweel cluster of fields, in the south of the country, to around 100,000 barrels a day (b/d). EOR schemes will play an important role in stemming the continuing slide in the Gulf state's crude production. According to official government figures, production fell by 1.2% in the first half of 2005, to 0.77m b/d. This compares with an average output of 0.9m b/d in 2002. If Omani production were to continue to fall at th