Industry

The phased drilling programme will cover oil producer wells and water injector wells. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has signed a three-year Integrated Drilling Services Contract with Weatherford covering 274 wells across Marmul and Greater Saqr fields as part of its efforts to support planned production growth and improve operational efficiency

This will involve a phased drilling programme covering oil producer wells and water injector wells and is designed to
• improve delivery efficiency
• strengthen cost certainty and achieve a 20% cost reduction compared with conventional pricing models
• enable more predictable rig and resource planning across the fields and
• create greater value for Oman, by developing Omani talent, building national capabilities, expanding local opportunities and retaining greater value in Oman.

Dr. Aflah Said Al Hadhrami, director general of Petroleum Development Oman, said: "Our ability to efficiently and responsibly grow production is fundamental to maximising value from the Sultanate of Oman's hydrocarbon resources."

He added that the agreement marks another step toward production growth as a key pillar of Oman’s institutional transformation, and would support PDO’s commitment to enhancing in-country value by developing local capabilities, investing in Omani talent and retaining more value in the country.

Girish Saligram, chief executive officer of Weatherford, said the contract reflects the company’s commitment to operational excellence, innovation and sustainable value creation.

He added that Weatherford would support PDO’s objectives to improve production efficiency and ensure sustainable field development, while building local capabilities, developing Omani talent and expanding opportunities across the local value chain.

Long-standing collaboration

The award builds on a long-standing collaboration between PDO and Weatherford which saw a five- five-year contract exceeding US$500mn awarded to Weatherford in 2022 from PDO to deliver Integrated Drilling Services in the Marmul and Greater Saqr fields. At the time it was envisaged that Weatherford would deliver more than 700+ wells in the two fields over the years, combining a suite of technologies to deliver holistic and innovative solutions that maximise drilling efficiency. Weatherford said the project is an integral part of Weatherford Oman’s In-Country Value strategy and also in line with Oman’s Vision 2040 to deliver safe and sustainable energy for the future.

Saligram commented at the time, “Our Integrated Services offering is gaining significant traction in the market. This award builds on our long and proven history of delivering technology leadership and innovation and is a testament to the competitiveness of our portfolio.

“Our service quality, value proposition, and local content positioned Weatherford as the clear partner of choice and will enable safe drilling operations that maximise efficiency while delivering value and reducing carbon emissions.”

About the Marmul field

The Marmul field is a major mature onshore oil field located in the Dhofar governorate of southern Oman, containing heavy and viscous crude oil. Over the past 15 years, an extensive polymer flooding program has been implemented to enhance oil recovery and counter production declines.

About the Greater Saqr field

The Greater Saqr field is a major onshore energy development project located in the southern region of Oman, spanning an area of 112 sq km in the governorate of Shalim and Halaniyyat Islands. It combines production from six satellite fields and utilises water flooding to enhance recovery. The production capacity of the gathering station which came online in 2024 is 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day.

Oman’s oil production

Oman’s average daily oil production rose by more than 10% to nearly 1.1mn barrels per day (bpd) in the first six months of 2026, according to the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), up from 989,200 bpd a year earlier. The country’s oil and natural gas infrastructure has remained largely unaffected by the regional conflict, with the country’s principal export terminals located outside the Strait of Hormuz. This has enabled the sultanate to maintain uninterrupted energy exports while benefiting from higher production levels. Oman has pioneered enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques to reverse declining production, which have met with considerable success.

HE Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi , Qatar’s Energy Minister, CEO and president of QatarEnergy speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum. (Image source: QatarEnergy)

Qatar now expects production from its massive North Field East LNG expansion to start up in 2027, according to HE Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi , Qatar’s Energy Minister, CEO and president of QatarEnergy

Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum, Powered by Bloomberg: UNGA Special Edition 2026 in New York, the Minister said the first production train at North Field East – the initial phase of Qatar’s LNG expansion – is expected to come online in the first half of 2027 as shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz slow projects across the country’s economy. It had previously been expected to start production this year.

Tightening LNG supplies

The world's largest single non-associated gas field, the North Field, spanning over 6,000 sq. km, represents 20% of the world's total gas reserves. Qatar’s North Field expansion projects aim to raise LNG production capacity to 142mn tons per annum (MTPA) before the end of this decade. The North Field South project – the second phase of the expansion – is slated to come online in 2028, Al-Kaabi said – but these timings will depend on what happens in the Hormuz Strait and the ability to get facilities coming in.

The timeline reinforces the expectations that the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the Iran war threatens to tighten global LNG supplies for years, Bloomberg comments. Disruptions have already cut LNG supplies from Qatar — the world’s second largest LNG exporter and a key supplier to both the Asian and European markets — sending spot prices surging to the highest level since 2022 in Asia and Europe.

Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant, which produced nearly a fifth of the world’s LNG before the war began in February, can resume operations at undamaged parts of the facility “within a couple of weeks” when Hormuz reopens, the Minister said. The attack on Ras Laffan early on in the conflict resulted in damage to two LNG trains and Shell’s GTL plant, prompting Qatar to declare force majeure to its affected buyers.

“Repairs on the GTL train will be concluded in the first quarter of 2027. However, it will take three years for repairs on the two LNG trains,” the Minister said. 

Qatar is currently exporting a very small amount of LNG through the Strait, Al-Kaabi said, adding that Doha has decided not to build bypass pipelines.

“LNG, our main export commodity, cannot be transported by pipelines. We will have to transport it by pipelines as gas and then liquify it at the receiving terminal, wherever that may be. This means we are building reductant facilities to the ones we are already building in Qatar as part of the North Field expansion project. This makes no economic sense.”

Diversifying options

Qatar is pivoting to become a larger trader of LNG in the meantime, and is handling more LNG outside of the Persian Gulf with the start of its Golden Pass export facility in the US. Shipments have started from the first train.

“We expect next year to have both the second and third trains in full operations. We are also building the largest ethane cracker in the world at the Golden Triangle Polymers Project.” The project will be starting up in the next few weeks, he said.

 “We will be, in the very near future, the largest LNG trader in the world by far,” said Al-Kaabi. “And we’re building our position to become the largest trader.”

Cyber risk is growing in the face of increased connectivity. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Industrial companies are increasing cybersecurity investment as connected operations, AI adoption and IT/OT convergence expand operational risk, with more than one-third seeing cybersecurity risk as a top obstacle to growth, according to a new study from Rockwell Automation 

Industrial companies are connecting more systems, scaling AI faster, and pushing operations to move in real time. Those investments create speed, efficiency and flexibility, but also expand operational risk. As organisations continue to connect information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems, scale AI initiatives, and expand the use of operational data across the enterprise, they create new dependencies that can increase exposure to cyber-related risk, underscoring the need to strengthen resilience.

The report, Operational Resilience in the Age of Connectivity, based on input from 1,500 manufacturing and industrial operations decision makers across a range of industries in 17 countries, reveals a disconnect between confidence in comprehensive cybersecurity protection and operational risk. Although industrial organisations are investing in cybersecurity in the face of the growing risks, those investments do not automatically translate into operational resilience.

Key findings

Key findings from the report include:
• Organisations remain confident despite rising incident exposure: While 46% of organisations experienced a cyber incident in the past year, 90% say they are confident in their ability to prevent, contain or recover from one.
• Cybersecurity delivers strong perceived ROI: 62% of organisations have already invested in cybersecurity platforms, and cybersecurity ranks as the second-highest ROI-generating technology investment reported by respondents.
• Organisations are looking to AI as part of their cybersecurity response: 45% plan to apply AI and machine learning to cybersecurity initiatives over the next 12 months.
• IT/OT convergence creates both risk and opportunity: IT and OT integration points rank as the second-most vulnerable to cyber incidents. At the same time, 37% say securing IT/OT architecture will drive positive business outcomes over the next five years.

The findings point to a clear shift: organisations are embedding cybersecurity into broader digital transformation strategies alongside AI, automation, cloud technologies and connected operations. But as environments become more interconnected, resilience depends on how well organisations can translate investment into coordinated action.

Resilience requires continual improvement

Resilient operations depend on continuously adapting OT cybersecurity programmes as operational needs and risks evolve, the report says. It requires a proactive, end-to-end approach aligned to globally recognised frameworks and standards such as NIST, NIS2 and IEC 62443. This gives organisations a structured roadmap to improve security maturity while meeting regulatory requirements.

The organisations that gain the most value from cybersecurity will be those that take a proactive, programmatic approach. By building visibility, risk-based decision making, secure architectures, continuous monitoring and recovery readiness into their operations from the start, they can reduce operational risk, sustain production during disruption and enable the business to move forward with confidence.

The good news is that organisations are rising to the challenge. They no longer treat cybersecurity as a separate IT initiative but are instead increasingly viewing it as part of operational performance.

“Industrial organisations understand that cybersecurity directly affects uptime, continuity, productivity and growth, but technology investments alone do not create operational resilience or confidence in an organisation's security posture,” said Rick Kaun, global director, cybersecurity services at Rockwell Automation. “True resilience is built when cybersecurity becomes an integral part of business strategy. Organisations that proactively manage risk and prepare for disruption are better positioned to protect operations, sustain production and gain a competitive advantage.”

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is operational resilience?

Operational resilience is an organisation's ability to sustain safe, secure, and reliable industrial operations by proactively managing risk, limiting disruption and providing rapid recovery from incidents.

Why is IT/OT convergence increasing cybersecurity risk?

IT/OT convergence increases cybersecurity risk because it expands the attack surface, introduces new points of connectivity and allows threats that originate in IT environments to potentially impact industrial operations. As operational data, systems, users and third-party connections become more interconnected, a single cyber incident can have broader consequences across production, safety, quality and business continuity.

How are industrial organisations using AI for cybersecurity?

According to the research, 45% of industrial organizations plan to apply AI and machine learning to cybersecurity over the next 12 months to help improve detection, monitoring and risk management capabilities.

The full report, is available HERE and explores how industrial organisations are strengthening cybersecurity, managing IT/OT convergence and building more resilient operations in an increasingly connected environment.

The conflict in the Middle East is having a significant impact on mergers and acquisition. (Image source: Adobe Stock)

Global upstream mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity is set to exceed last year’s US$175 billion total, with nearly US$130 billion in transactions announced as of August 2026 and a further US$137 billion in the pipeline, according to Rystad Energy

However, oil-price volatility is widening valuation expectations and making deal execution increasingly difficult.

Atul Raina, VP, oil and gas M&A said, “Oil price volatility has created a deeper opportunity set, but it has also made deals harder to execute. Sellers are looking at elevated spot prices and near-term cash flow, while buyers are underwriting against a backwardated price strip and the possibility that current conditions may not last.

"The opportunity is clearly there, but pipeline value does not automatically translate into executable deal value. Timing, transaction structure, and the willingness to bridge valuation expectations will determine whether the remainder of 2026 produces a breakout or a growing backlog."

Global upstream M&A deal value increased 55% year on year to approximately US$100 billion during the first half of 2026, with North America accounting for more than US$68 billion, or 68%, of first-half global deal value. Shale transactions represented more than US$63 billion—equivalent to 92% of North American activity and 63% of global upstream M&A. Devon Energy’s US$25.1 billion merger with Coterra Energy and Shell’s US$16.4 billion acquisition of ARC Resources together accounted for 41% of global deal value.

Middle East conflict expands the pipeline but slows down execution

The conflict in the Middle East has had a significant impact on upstream M&A. Approximately US$56 billion, or 56%, of first-half deal value was announced before the conflict began on 28 February. A further US$44 billion was announced from March through June, despite Brent averaging approximately US$99 per barrel between March and July. This is the lowest average monthly deal value since 2016 (US$10.7 billion monthly average) and 2020 (US$8.6 billion monthly average) when Brent prices averaged around US$44 per barrel around $42 per barrel, respectively.

At the same time, high but volatile prices have encouraged several E&Ps, particularly privately owned E&Ps in the US shale, to test the market, increasing the global opportunity pipeline from approximately US$98 billion before the conflict to US$137 billion currently. This volatility in prices and uncertainty around a potential resolution to the conflict also brings risks around deal execution. Rystad Energy expects buyers and sellers to respond with greater use of contingent or deferred considerations, flexible effective dates and stronger termination protections as buyers and sellers seek to share commodity-price and closing risk.

International dealmaking becomes more selective

Outside North America, first-half deal value increased 7% year on year to more than US$32 billion. South America led international activity with approximately US$13 billion, supported by consolidation in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta. Africa also recorded stronger activity as majors returned as buyers of offshore exploration positions in Angola and Namibia.

International activity is expected to remain more selective despite nearly US$52 billion of opportunities on the market. Major-led divestments and farm-downs will likely dominate as companies recycle capital, share development expenditure and reduce portfolio concentration while retaining exposure to strategically important assets.

The global M&A market therefore has sufficient opportunity depth to produce another strong year. However, it hinges on whether buyers and sellers can structure transactions that accommodate a volatile oil-price outlook and increasingly complex geopolitical risks.