Searcher to reprocess Oman seismic as Muscat looks to tempt explorers

Australia’s Searcher announced this week that it will acquire new seismic surveys and reprocess legacy seismic data across Oman as part of a new collaboration with the Sultanate’s Ministry of Energy and Minerals (MEM). The deal will consist of both 2-D and 3-D onshore and offshore data and follows the recent closure of the country’s 2021 licensing round.

Searcher said it has already begun reprocessing legacy offshore data from the Sea of Oman, which kicked off with the application of modern broadband processing and removal technologies.

The company believes that by improving the imaging of the offshore geology, it will be able to provide greater certainty about thrusts and fold belt plays and offer better insight into the stratigraphy below the decollement surface, which currently suggests the potential for significant oil resources.

The overall project covers 32,000 km of 2-D and 2,500 square km of 3-D legacy data and Searcher expects to complete its reprocessing and acquisition of new 2-D and 3-D seismic by the end of 2023.

The award comes amid a renewed push for international investment focused on underexplored areas of Oman’s onshore and offshore areas.

Speaking to Middle East Oil & Gas (MEOG), Larissa Normanton, head of Middle East & North Africa at Aperio Intelligence, said: “Oman has been a relatively attractive investment proposition for international firms given the stability of the regime and favourable business conditions. However, recent licensing efforts have had to contend with oil price concerns and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the country’s well-known geological challenges.”

In August 2021, the MEM began its 2021 Licensing Round, which ran until March 31 this year and comprised three hydrocarbon concessions – offshore Block 23 and onshore Blocks 38 and 66.

The blocks are the first to have been advertised by Muscat since the 2019 licensing round, which took nearly two years to find parties to take over five previously explored blocks carved out of Petroleum Development Oman’s (PDO) giant Block 6 concession.

Block 23 is located to the east of Block 50, where Masirah Oil Ltd recently completed a five-well drilling campaign as it seeks to develop the Yumna oilfield. It was created by breaking down the much larger Block 59 into Blocks 21, 22 and 23.

It also borders the 90,000-square km Block 52 in which Italy’s Eni and Qatar Petroleum have been carrying out exploratory drilling, so far without success.

The 17,425-square km Block 38, also known as Mudayy, is located in the far south-west of the Sultanate in Dhofar Governorate, along the border with Yemen. The licence is currently listed as ‘open’, although it was previously operated by Australian explorer Frontier Resources, which in September 2015 hired Moyes & Co. to help it find a farm-in partner. A few months later, the company negotiated an extension to the first phase of the exploration and production-sharing agreement (EPSA), but Frontier ceased reporting on Block 38 in 2016 and exploration efforts appear to have halted.

Block 66 is located in the Rub’ Al-Khali basin in western Oman and lies along the border with Saudi Arabia. Hungary’s MOL, in which Oman Oil Co. owns 7.1%, signed an EPSA for the 4,899-square km concession in 2013, estimating reserves at 200mn barrels and drilling exploratory wells between 2014 and 2017, again without success.

It had initially based optimism around Block 66 partly on the presence of two producing fields in neighbouring Block 7, known as Abu al Tabool. However, local operator Petrogas allowed its EPSA for the block to expire in 2017 with another Omani firm, Hydrocarbons Finder (HCF) acquiring a new 15-year licence with the medium-term aim of ramping up output from the current level of around 970 bpd to 5,000 bpd over five years. Output from the Sahmah, Ramlat and Rija fields in Block 7 is currently below 1,000 bpd, though HCF “is implementing a strategy to significantly enhance oil production”.