Oman’s natural gas production and imports rose to 26,269mn cu/m for the first eight months this year, from 24,942mn cu/m in the same period in 2014
Of this, while non-associated gas showed a growth of 6.7 per cent to 21,675mn cu/m, associated gas production declined 0.8 per cent to 4,595mn cu/m, according to statistics released by Oman’s National Centre for Statistics and Information.
A sizeable portion of the natural gas in Oman is used by various mega industrial projects, which stood at 14,536mn cu/m for the first eight months of 2015, against 13,847mn cu/m for the same period last year. Natural gas is also used in oilfields either as fuel or for re-injection.
In the first eight months, as much as 5,643mn cu/m of natural gas was used in oilfields, against 5,182mn cu/m units consumed for the same period in 2014. Other major consumers of natural gas in the country include power producers, small-scale industries and liquefied natural gas plants.
Natural gas used by power and desalination plants stood 3.1 per cent higher at 5,650mn cu/m for the seven-month period of this year.
The Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP) has estimated gas consumption in the electricity and water desalination sector to rise substantially in the next five years mainly due to higher production to support growing demand for power and water.
The sultanate’s natural gas production this year is projected at 120mn cu/m per day, which is 15mn cu/m higher than that in 2014.
Oman produced and imported 37,687mn cu/m of natural gas last year.
