Shell-led Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), has been tapped up by the government of Oman to boost its crude oil production to 600,000 b/d, some 50,000 b/d above a long-term plateau target set out by the company towards the end of the last decade and 30,000 b/d above current output.

PDO, the sultanate’s biggest hydrocarbons producer by some distance, set a plateau crude oil output target of around 550,000 b/d in 2008, with a view to arresting an eight year decline which saw output fall from 840,000 b/d in 2000 to below 550,000 b/d in 2008, and extending the lives of its most prolific fields. (CONTINUED - 1567 WORDS)