Daleel - a 50:50 joint venture between the local Petrogas, part of MB Petroleum, and China National Petroleum Company (CNPC)- took over the operation of Block-5 in July from a Japanese consortium. The first rig is scheduled to start drilling by late November (MEED 30:8:02).

The company is planning to boost production to a plateau of 25,000 barrels a day (b/d) within four years, from 5,000 b/d at present. The next stage in the project will be the evaluation of studies on the debottlenecking of the existing production facilities. Daleel will then issue a tender for the contract to provide front-end engineering and design (FEED) for the main expansion, which may include some additional pipeline infrastructure.