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Tuesday, 02 December, 2008, 21:40 GMT | more >>

BP tables Oman early gas plan



By Upstream staff 

BP could pump gas to the market in 2011 from appraisal wells at a project to develop difficult gas reserves in Oman, the company said.

Gas from appraisal wells is usually flared, but BP is examining how it can pump the early gas to Oman's grid.

"We will be conducting extended well testing," Steve Peacock, president of BP’s Middle East & South Asia Exploration and Production unit, told Reuters.

"We'd like to do something profitable with the gas from both sides rather than flare it," Peacock said.

BP is in the process of issuing tenders for drilling and for engineering and design of the project.

Part of the engineering will be for the early scheme, Peacock said.

The early scheme would also need a processing unit to remove sulphur from the gas, he said.

Peacock declined to estimate how much gas might BP might produce at the fields in the early phase of the project.

BP hoped to award the drilling tender for a three to four year programme by the end of the year, he said.

The company wanted drilling to begin in the third quarter next year, he added.

It has already issued a tender for seismic work on the fields, which it hopes will begin before the end of the year.

BP won the contract to develop tight gas reserves in Oman in January.

The reserves are in complex formations from which it is difficult to extract gas.

The fields that BP is developing could hold reserves of up to 30 trillion cubic feet, potentially nearly doubling Oman's proven gas reserves of 35.6 Tcf at the end of last year.


Tuesday, 04 September, 2007, 01:55 GMT  | last updated: Tuesday, 04 September, 2007, 07:15 GMT

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