Muscat – Maha Energy, a Swedish international upstream oil and gas company, is planning to drill a minimum six exploration wells in Oman’s onshore Block 70. The company has awarded the drilling contract to Global Business Services (GBS) in Oman for the well drilling campaign.

Oman’s Ministry of Energy and Minerals awarded the exploration and development rights for the concession Block 70 to Maha Energy in October 2020.

Maha Energy has signed a letter of award with GBS in Muscat for the drilling of a minimum of six wells on Block 70, according to a statement issued by the company.

The letter of award is binding and precedes a drilling contract which is expected to be finalized in the near future. The drilling rig, GBS-1 (formerly OGI-4) is a 1,000hp super single top drive rig, built in 2010 and is currently located in Muscat, Maha Energy said in the statement.

‘The rig will be prepared for the campaign and expected mobilization is in June 2022. The drilling program will consist of two appraisal wells followed by four horizontal pilot production wells on the Mafraq structure,’ the statement said.

Jonas Lindvall, CEO of Maha Energy, said, “We are very excited about working with GBS on this project. The GBS-1 rig is an ideal drilling rig for this project since it can move very quickly between well sites. We are also very excited about breaking ground on the Mafraq field and look forward with anticipation to the preliminary results of the pilot well tests.”

Maha Energy said its immediate plans for the Mafraq oilfield include obtaining important reservoir information to assist in developing a full field development plan. Information that will be acquired in the first two appraisal wells includes, but is not limited to, the oil water contact, petrophysical properties, cores and identification of possible water disposal zones.

‘After the two appraisal wells are drilled and completed, four horizontal pilot production wells will be drilled. These four wells will be completed with state-of-the-art PCP pumps from Canada and then placed on an extended well test to further ascertain oil productivity,’ the company said.

Maha Energy was successful in securing Block 70, which contains the Mafraq heavy oil discovery, in a 2019-2020 bid round in Oman.

The Mafraq structure is a delineated heavy oil field that was extensively tested by Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) in 1988 and 1991.

Maha Energy stated that according to the independent reserve auditor Chapman Petroleum Engineering Ltd of Calgary, Canada, the Mafraq field may hold approximately 35mn barrels of recoverable oil.