DUBA: Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) and US GlassPoint Solar have commissioned the Middle East’s first solar enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project, the project partners said yesterday.
State-run PDO’s first full-scale EOR project to extract more oil from low pressure reservoirs opened in 2010 and it has since employed several new techniques to boost production. The latest project uses the sun’s energy instead of scarce natural gas to produce an average of 50 tonnes a day of steam which is fed into PDO’s Amal West EOR field in Southern Oman.
“This solar EOR solution provides for an economically viable and environmentally sustainable long term resource to develop Oman’s heavy oil portfolio, while saving valuable natural gas resources for use in other gas-dependent industries,” PDO director Raoul Restucci said.
Reuters
