The Burhaan oil field, located 60 kilometres north of Qarn Alam in Central Oman, was brought on stream on June 3 with an initial production of 11,400 barrels of oil per day. By the end of this year, an estimated 24,500 barrels of oil are expected to be produced each day from the field; ultimately, its production rate is expected to rise to 37,000 barrels per day.

The Burhaan oil began flowing only 15 months after the decision had been taken by Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) to proceed with the field's development - three month ahead of target. The Burhaan project team, including five contractors working in parallel - Al Turki, TOCO, Al Hassan, OHI and the Qarn Alam engineering service contractor (Al Turki/Arabian Industries) - had to oversee the building of a remote gathering station, a 12-inch glass-reinforced epoxy (GRE) pipeline, overhead electrical infrastructure and telecommunications facilities (including three towers). Because the well fluids, which comprise not only oil but also water and gas, will flow through the GRE pipeline to the existing production station at Saih Nihayda, 45 kilometres to the southwest, modifications to the facilities at Saih Nihayda were also necessary.

The 45-kilometre GRE pipeline to Saih Nihayda has the distinction of being the longest such pipeline in PDO. "The pipeline is essentially maintenance free," says Momas Modon, Senior Project Engineer. "It is also a multiphase export line, which means that all the oil, gas and water travels together in the pipeline to the downstream facilities, resulting in simple facilities required at Burhaan without the need for flaring the gas." The field facilities were designed from the start to be remotely operable from Saih Nihayda. Remote well-testing and electrically actuated valves for flow control are therefore standard features in the project.

Originally, field-development plans called for a conventional production station at Burhaan at a cost of $55 million, resulting in a unit technical cost (UTC) in excess of $4 per barrel. By utilising the existing facilities in Saih Nihayda and extending the "minimum-intervention, satellite-development concept", the project team brought down the surface-facilities cost and UTC to $18 million and $2 per barrel, respectively.

The Burhaan field output contributes to the sharp increase of production from the Central Oman that PDO has achieved over the past two years. It is the first of three large new PDO fields to be brought on stream during 2000.

Note :
Petroleum Development Oman LLC is the major oil and gas exploration and production company in the Sultanate. The company is owned by the Omani Government (which holds a 60% interest) and three foreign enterprises - the Royal Dutch/Shell Group (with an interest of 34%), TotalFina-Elf (with an interest of 4%) and Partex (with an interest 2%). The company has publicly and explicitly committed itself to contributing to the sustainable development of the Sultanate.

Oil from the Burhaan field is produced through a multi-lateral horizontal well that was drilled on Rig 54 (Fortress Energy). The well has a total openhole length of 4623 metres at a depth of about 1800 metres. It was drilled in only 49 days and completed with a 325-horsepower electric submersible pump - one of the largest installed in PDO wells.