The current market dynamics has positioned both the Government and private operators to find better fiscal and commercial arrangements to continue drawing investments into Oman’s energy market, says Dr Badar Al Kharusi, PDO’s Oil North Director, in an interview with Oommen John P

Is the evolving global energy landscape benefitting Oman to seek investments in the oil and gas sector?

The Ministry of Oil and Gas (MOG) continues to draw investment at a very sizable scale into the Oman oil and gas sector year on year even post 2015, when hydrocarbon commodity prices showed a sharp decline.

In 2019, MOG awarded several concessions mostly on integrated gas development to companies like Shell, Total and ENI. In recent years, the Government of Oman has awarded offshore blocks to the likes of ENI, which is currently drilling in exploration phase the first deep water well in Oman South-Eastern coast. The current market dynamics has positioned both the Government and private operators comprising international and local oil companies to find better fiscal and commercial arrangements to continue drawing investments into Oman’s energy market.

OPES 2020 will have a dedicated session presented by the MOG to shed light on this very topic of new investment models for oil and gas companies in Oman and share recent successes. The session will be open for conference participants and the media.

You are the programme chairperson of Oman Petroleum & Energy Show (OPES)?  What are the key topics that will be discussed at OPES?

The main themes of the conference are enhanced/improved oil recovery EOR/IOR, gas development, and offshore and marine operations.

As the conference is expected to draw a very large level of participation, the organisers are planning to hold three sessions on the state of the oil and gas industry and its latest trends. These are broken into a CEO session with HE Salim Al Aufi, Undersecretary at the Ministry of Gas as the lead speaker joined by the CEOs of PDO, the Chairman of the MB Group, the Chairman of National Oilwell Varco and the CEO of Petrofac.

The second session is an executive plenary session with six panellists of CEOs and executive of international, regional and local companies. The third session is the strategic panel session focusing on low carbon growth and emerging outlooks in the Energy Industry. The separate high note sessions are then planned during the three day conference on the conference themes of EOR/IR, gas development and offshore and Marine. There are 28 technical sessions with each having four main presentations followed by several poster sessions in different technical subjects related to the conference themes.

As one of the sponsors of OPES, what will PDO showcase at the event?

PDO is heavily represented in OPES 2020. It has three of its executives in the two committees of the conference and exhibition. PDO engineers have submitted close to 80 technical abstracts out of which about a third have been selected to be presented to the delegates visiting the conference from different parts of the world. PDO speakers are taking prominent stage to speak at the conference economic, geopolitical and strategic sessions. These include the company’s managing director, technical director and assets directors. PDO also has featured strongly in the competition for OPES Awards and is poised to receive three out of the six conference awards.

PDO is also planning to have a fully-fledged booth as part of the exhibition throughout the conference and exhibition showcasing PDO’s success story in oil and gas production, sustainable development, ICV, employment, technology and so on. PDO is likely to use the event as a venue to sign some recently awarded business contracts and memorandums of understanding.