Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has announced that it has completed drilling the 1,000th well on its Nimr oilfield, located south of Muscat
The well — NM-1000 — has been developed around three kilometres south west of the field’s first well, NM-1, which is still in production after its discovery 33 years ago, a company statement said.
According to PDO, the 1,000 wells at Nimr, which is in the southern part of PDO’s concession area, have reportedly produced 625mn barrels of oil with another 132mn barrels of reserves in the pipeline — an average ultimate recovery of 700,000 barrels per well.
Junaid Mohiddin Ghulam, Nimr Cluster leader at PDO, said, “Besides being the first oil field in Oman to achieve this milestone, NM-1000 symbolises the persistence, resolve and sustainability of the team to produce oil from some of the most challenging subsurface environments.”
The well was drilled by PDO Rig-82 over a 23-day period in the Middle Gharif sandstone reservoir to a total depth of 2,100 metres and is now in production, the company added.
Raoul Restucci, managing director of PDO, said, “The Nimr Cluster has evolved into an efficient fossil fuel factory with the team now delivering over 100 wells a year — a tremendous collective effort which has generated, and will continue to generate, significant revenue and resource for Oman.”
Heavy oil production began at Nimr in 1985 after the commissioning of production facilities. The production of horizontal wells with the drilling of NM-134 in 1990 was a turning point, subsequently taking the total field production to a peak plateau of 90,000 barrels per day.
Nimr, PDO’s largest field in terms of crude oil production, has a further 150 million barrels currently being matured through field trials and studies and polymer injection trials have just commenced, the company added.
