Muscat – Petroleum Development Oman’s (PDO) Yibal Khuff Project (YKP), the most complex and second largest project in size in the company’s history, has started production, marking a key milestone for the landmark facility.

The Yibal Khuff Project, which was awarded in 2015, is technologically complex due to its mega high sour oil and gas content. The integrated oil and sour gas facility is located approximately 350km south-west of Muscat.

The installation’s first sour wells were opened earlier this month introducing sour oil to the YKP Central Processing Facility, and the project has already started exporting crude oil to the Main Oil Line, PDO said in a statement on Tuesday.

The plant’s capacity will be ramped up over the coming months, the company said. When fully operational, the YKP mega project will be delivering 5mn cubic meters of gas per day and around 20,000 barrels per day of crude.

Spanning an area of 1.68sqkm, YKP is the most technically complex project in PDO’s history – with COVID-19 adding another layer of complexity over the past two years of construction and commissioning activities.

The project is of a high strategic value towards meeting Oman’s growing medium and long- term oil and gas demands, as well as reducing PDO’s net non-associated gas import.

PDO’s managing director Steve Phimister said, “The YKP coming on stream is a source of great pride for PDO. Despite the challenging environment and scale of this project, the project teams were able to stay the course and deliver the project with an amazing HSE (health, safety and environment) record, exceeding 46mn Lost Time Injury-free man-hours. Both the company and contractor staff have shown outstanding dedication and commitment to overcome many hurdles to reach this stage of the project.”

As per PDO, around 1,200 Omanis have been employed on site in the construction of the YKP facilities, with a further 200 nationals deployed as fully qualified welders. Around US$400mn worth of contracts were also awarded to Omani companies for the provision of goods and services.

YKP project manager Munir al Hammadi said, “In addition to safety, the project team maintained quality as another main driver throughout the execution of the project, ensuring an elaborate quality assurance and control scheme was in place resulting in a world-class quality delivery of the project.”

“The project is also considered the first to allocate a scope for SMEs whilst ensuring the full development of the deployed 200 Omani welders including their redeployment to other projects. It is worth highlighting that this team of Omani welders have managed to successfully complete the highest diameter welds in the project,” he added.