Oman’s Oil and Gas Minister Mohammed bin Hamad al-Rumhy is “optimistic” the government can reach a profit-sharing deal with UK energy major BP on the development of the Khazzan tight gas project in the coming weeks.

BP won the concession on Block 61 in west-central Oman in 2007 and has since been carrying out a commercial appraisal on the reserves.

“The discussion is still ongoing. It is a big project with big reserves and is challenging work,” said Al-Rumhy at a press conference in Muscat. “There are a number of issues that still have to be discussed on both sides.”

“There are disagreements, but we [the government and BP] are both optimistic on reaching an agreement, hopefully in the coming weeks,” he added. If an agreement is finalised, BP will sign a 30-year deal to produce from the reservoirs.

The proposed $15bn-plus operation is expected to produce about 1 billion cubic feet a day (cf/d) of sales gas from 275 to 325 wells drilled in the field. The initial phase of development in Block 61 will target about 7 trillion cubic feet of recoverable resource.

Tight gas, a type of unconventional reserve, is trapped in impermeable rock and requires fracturing and directional drilling to extract, making production costly and technically challenging. At Khazzan, one of the world’s only purely greenfield tight gas projects, the reserves are trapped at 4.5-5 kilometres below the surface.