Occidental Oman (Oxy), the largest independent oil and gas producer in the Sultanate, plans to uncover the hydrocarbon potential in its Block 53 licence, a report said.

“Recently we have started our exploration programme where we are looking for more opportunities within the block,” Adnan Al Lawati, vice president — Operations, was quoted as saying in the Oman Observer report.

“Our major focus is on developing the Gharif reservoir which holds about 2.5 billion barrels of oil in place. There is also a shallower opportunity with an estimated 800 million barrels of oil in place in a place called Kahmah,” he added.

“The development area is about 300 sq km.  There are two structures — the North Structure and South Structure,” Al Lawati explained.

“The field holds over 3 billion barrels of oil in place in the ground.  This is distributed between sandstone with around 2.5 billion barrels, and carbonate fractures with around 800 million barrels of oil in place.  (The latter) has been a bit challenging for development.  However both of these are heavy oil, which require steam infrastructure.”

Block 53 holds the Mukhaizna field where Oxy and its partners have invested in the development of one of the world’s largest steamflood projects to produce heavy oil from its sandstone reservoirs, the report said.

Production from the Mukhaizna field averaged 122,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2015, representing roughly half of Oxy’s gross production of around 233,000 barrels of oil per day from its assets in Oman, it added.