Oman's exports of crude oil, condensates and refined petroleum products in 2010 now are averaging 622,000 b/d, down from 665,000 b/d in early 2008, about 695,000 b/d in early 2006 and about 845,000 b/d in 2000. The main concessionaire, state-controlled Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), is hoping that its crude oil and condensate production in 2010 would rise to 660,000 b/d, up from 606,000 b/d in recent weeks. Oman's exports of crude oil and condensate average 494,000 b/d. Exports of refined products average about 128,000 b/d.
replica rolexChina tops the list of importing countries. Other major importers include Thailand, India, South Korea and Japan. Oman is an observer at OPEC meetings, but is not bound by the group's production quotas and cannot vote at its output setting conferences.
Before its oil production began to decline rapidly in 2002, Oman used to be a key participant in non-OPEC (IPEC) support for OPEC's price defence. It had cut its production by 40,000 b/d effective from the beginning 2002 to the middle of that year as did Russia, Norway, Mexico and Angola. But, with the exception of Angola which later joined OPEC, none of the other IPEC states has since repeated that gesture - not because of a lack of goodwill but in view of the fact that almost all oil exporters around the world are producing at capacity, with Saudi Arabia being the only member of OPEC complying fully with its quota limit (omt7OmanExportsFeb11-08).
Oman has become a major exporter of LNG, with two trains having been on stream since 2000 and a third train having started up in late 2005 raising the country's LNG output capacity to 11m t/y. But now the trains are running below capacity due to a shortage of gas (see gmt7OmanLNG-Feb15-10).
About half of the oil and consensate exports is marketed directly by the Ministry of Oil and Gas (MOG), and the state-owned Oman Oil Co. (OOC) does some of the marketing through a trading JV with Vitol established in 2005. The Human hair wigs other half is sold by the PDO equity partners, mainly Shell and Total, and the other companies producing oil and condensate in Oman (see omt6OmanFieldsFeb8-10 & gmt6OmanFieldsFeb8-10).
Russia's state-owned oil pipeline company Transneft in the autumn of 2008 bought OOC's 7% stake in the Chevron-led Caspian Pipeline Consortium. (CPC), which pumps Kazakh crude oil to the Black Sea, raising its share in this key export route for Kazakhstan to 31%. But OOC has increased and diversified its external investments (see down7OmanOverseasFeb15-10).
The role of OOC's JV with Vitol in marketing crude oils and condensate, along with the MOG, is limited. But OOC's influence on the petroleum sector has declined (see Part 4 in omt8OmanWhoFeb22-10).
The quality of Oman, the main export blend of crude oils, is slightly higher than that of Abu Dhabi's Upper Zakum. Oman, 33.34? API, has a sulphur content of 1.04%, compared with Upper Zakum which is more sulphurous (1.9%) and slightly lighter (33.8? API). Oman's old official selling price (OSP), phased out in July 2007, used to be set at 25.5 cents/b more than Upper Zakum's OSP. But since August 2007, the prices have diverged drastically. Oman now sets its OSP by taking the average price of the Oman crude
embroidered patches futures contract trading on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) in a calendar month and using it as the OSP for two months ahead.
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