Contract awarded for drilling of three wells in Oman’s Masirah block

Upstream energy firm Masirah Oil Limited (MOL) has unveiled plans to drill a pair of development wells targeting the Yumna field in Block 50 — a move designed to ramp up output from the country’s first-ever producing field discovered off the Sultanate’s east coast. In a statement, MOL, which has a 100 per cent interest in the 17,000 sq km offshore concession in the Gulf of Masirah, said it has awarded a contract to UAE-based drilling rig operator Shelf Drilling to drill two development wells starting next month. This will be followed by the drilling of an exploration well in 2021, it noted. The announcement underscores optimism in the Block’s hydrocarbon potential notwithstanding the relatively depressed state of the global energy market, weighed down by a protracted economic downturn and the coronavirus pandemic. It also comes on the heels of the Omani government’s decision to approve the Field Development Plan for the Yumna field, as well as to award the all-important Declaration of Commerciality (DOC), paving the way for Masirah Oil Ltd to fully develop the field while continuing to explore the rest of Block 50. At the time of the Declaration of Commerciality by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals on July 12, 2020, the Yumna-1 well had been producing around 8,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil aggregating in excess of 1 million barrels. Stored temporarily on board an Aframax tanker, these volumes have been sold in multiple shipments on international markets. A recent uptick in international oil prices has augured for the growth of crude production from the Yumna field, according to a top executive of Rex International Holding, which holds a majority stake in Masirah Oil Limited. “With the permanent Yumna 1 production facilities in production and sale of the Masirah crude since April 2020, our next short-term focus would be to drill two development wells to boost production. The average oil price per barrel between July and September 2020 has been $43, which is 46 per cent higher than the average oil price per barrel between April and June 2020,” said Dan Broström, Executive Chairman of Rex, a Singapore-based technology-driven oil firm. “Following the development wells, an exploration well, the location of which is to be selected from 14 previously identified prospects near the Yumna Field, is slated to be drilled in 2021. A discovery in this exploration well will enable us to put together further development plans and potentially convert more prospective resources near the Yumna Field into additional reserves,” he further noted. According to Rex International, an independent Qualified Person’s Report (QPR) undertaken by Aker Geo and Pareto Asia in February 2012, had estimated the sum of best estimate gross unrisked prospective resources in the entire Block 50 to be over 4 billion barrels. Masirah Oil Limited is majority owned by Rex Oman Ltd (86.37 per cent) with minority stakes also held by Petroci, the National Oil Company of the Ivory Coast, and Schroder & Co Banque SA.