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Oman Foreign Downstream Ventures
The Oman Oil Company (OOC), established in the late
1980s, is
responsible for the government's foreign petroleum
activities.
The board of directors consists of former government
officials
and private advisers and is responsible to the Ministry of
Petroleum and Minerals. The OOC engages in international
oil
trading, including the purchase and sale of Omani crude
oil, and
in acquiring foreign
downstream (see Glossary)
holdings.
Acquiring foreign downstream holdings is the most recent
development in the ministry's oil policies, lagging behind
such
other Arab oil producers as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and
Libya,
which have actively pursued foreign downstream ventures to
ensure
a secure market for crude oil sales.
As of late 1992, the OOC was negotiating equity
interest in a
foreign downstream venture, the acquisition of a 20
percent stake
in Thailand's fifth refinery, in Rayong Province in the
south.
The refinery is designed to process up to 120,000 bpd of
crude
and will cost US$600 million. Operations are scheduled to
begin
in 1996 and will involve Oman's supplying part of the
refinery's
feedstock. Also, as a member of a consortium including
Chevron
Corporation of the United States, the OOC has committed
itself to
build an export pipeline to transport oil from the Tengiz
and
Korolyov fields in Kazakhstan to international markets.
The
pipeline complements an agreement signed on June 18, 1992,
by the
government of Oman with Kazakhstan for exploration and
production
of oil and gas in the former Soviet republic. The Tengiz
and
Korolyov fields are said to have a potential output of
700,000
bpd by 2010.
Data as of January 1993
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