UK-based oil group BP has completed more than 80 per cent of the Khazzan tight gas project in Oman, the largest hydrocarbons scheme ever undertaken in the sultanate.

The CEO of BP visited Muscat on 8 November for the official signing of an agreement with the Omani government to expand the scheme, which was initially announced in February.

“BP recently reached more than 80 per cent progression on the Khazzan project completion and is on track to deliver first gas near the end of 2017, and I am delighted to see BP taking additional acreage that will result in realising more gas reserves and more production of gas that our country needs to support our energy planning and requirements,” Oman’s Oil and Gas Minister Mohammed al-Rumhy said.

BP is the operator and 60 per cent shareholder of Block 61, which includes the Khazzan field, with Oman Oil Company for Exploration & Production holding the remaining 40 per cent.

The deal extends the Block 61 exploration and production-sharing agreement (EPSA) of the licence area by an additional 1,000 square kilometres to the south and west of the existing 2,700-sq-km area.

Oman is developing the Khazzan field – one of the largest unconventional gas fields in the Middle East – to meet rising demand for gas driven by its growing population and expanding industrial sector.

The Omani government gave BP the green light for the first phase of the development in December 2013 and the joint venture is aiming to complete the work by late 2017.

Phase two will expand production capacity from the initially planned 1 billion cubic feet a day (cf/d) to a target of 1.5 billion cf/d, which BP says is equal to about 40 per cent of the sultanate’s current gas production. The expansion is expected to come on stream by around 2020.

The two phases involve construction of a three-train central processing facility with associated gathering and export systems, and drilling more than 300 wells over a 15-year period. Improved reservoir performance, drilling efficiencies and other improvements have reduced the well count by about 100 wells from the original phase one plan, BP said.

The phase one central processing facility is being built by a joint venture of the UK’s Petrofac and Lebanon’s Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), which won a $1.3bn engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract in February 2014.

In June 2015, MEED revealed that BP had awarded contracts to Omani companies to install export pipelines.