MUSCAT — Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company (Orpic) has awarded five tenders for production technologies required at the Liwa plastic plant at a cost of $80 million. The Liwa plastic plant uses steam cracking techniques to process the final products from Sohar Refinery and the perfume factory. Randall Company will provide the technology required for extracting natural gas liquids which will be processed at a plant located in Fahud and transmitted through a 300-km pipeline to Sohar Industrial Port where natural gas liquids are separated to be used as raw material at the plastic plant.
Meanwhile, a report on crude oil and gas production issued by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI), revealed that oil production grew a healthy 1.3 per cent by the end of May recording 142.1 million barrels compared with 140.3 million barrels recorded during the same period in 2013.
Daily average crude oil production increased by the end of May, recording 941,100 barrels a day compared with 929,000 barrels during the same period in 2013. On the other hand, the average oil price per barrel registered a decline of 2 per cent from $107.56 per barrel by the end of May 2013 to $105.46 during the same period in 2014. The report also reveals a decline in the total volume of oil exports to major countries by 5.1 per cent registering 120 million barrels by the end of May when compared to 126.6 million barrels during the same period in 2013.
China topped the list of the countries importing crude oil from Oman with 85.4 million barrels representing an increase of 21.4 per cent when compared 70.3 million barrels imported during the same period in 2013.
In second place was Taiwan, which imported 12.2 million barrels representing a decline of 23.6 per cent compared to 16 million barrels imported during the same period in 2013; followed by Japan which imported 8.2 million barrels representing a decline of 32.4 per cent when compared to 12.1 million barrels imported during the same period in 2013.
Meanwhile, natural gas, taking into account imports and local production, declined by 6.2 per cent by the end of May 2014 registering 14.845 million cubic metres when compared with 15,824 million cubic metres.
The fall is a result of the reduced production of non-associated gas by 7.5 per cent registering 12,012 million cubic metre when compared to 12,979 million cubic metres registered during the same period in 2013. Associated gas production also declined marginally by 0.4 per cent registering 2.833 million cubic metre by the end of May when compared to 2,846 million cubic metres during the same period in 2013.
