State-held Oman Oil Company plans to invest US$1 billion in developing various upstream and downstream projects in Oman this year, the firm's chief executive Isam Al Zadjali said on Tuesday.
Oman Oil Company and its subsidiaries have several major projects in various stages of planning, design and development, including the Salalah LPG project, an ammonia project to expand the Salalah methanol unit, the Duqm gas pipeline, Sohar-Wadi Al Jissi gas pipeline, and a large crude oil storage facility at Ras Al Markaz near Duqm, and several other energy projects in the Duqm free zone.
"Salalah LPG project has already been approved by the board and we are negotiating with banks for a financial closure in the next few weeks. We are also going to recommend to our board an ammonia project, which is a (downstream) expansion of Salalah Methanol project," Times of Oman quoted Al Zadjali as telling reporters on the sidelines of an event.
Oman Oil Company (OOC) also plans to build another crude oil storage facility at Ras Al Markaz, the manager noted.
Last week, a senior official at the oil and gas ministry of non-OPEC producer Oman said that the country intended to pump an average of 1 million bpd this year, despite the 45,000 bpd production cut it had pledged with the OPEC-non-OPEC deal.
Oman was part of the group of 11 non-OPEC producers - including Russia - that had agreed to act jointly with the cartel to cut oil supply. The non-OPEC countries had pledged a total production cut of 558,000 bpd.
Last year, Oman's production exceeded for the first time the average of 1 million bpd and stood at 1,004,300 bpd-an increase of 2.6 percent, Times of Oman reported, quoting data by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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