May 3 (Bloomberg) -- Oman, the biggest oil producer in the Persian Gulf that isn’t a member of OPEC, aims to produce about 850,000 barrels of oil a day for the next decade, the country’s oil minister said.
“If I can give an assurance to my colleagues at the revenue department that we will keep this production for the next 10 years, then at least we can sit and think and plan,” Mohammed bin Hamad al-Rumhy said in an interview in Doha, Qatar, today. “That’s our goal.”
Oman plans to raise its oil output to 850,000 barrels a day from about 800,000 barrels a day now, al-Rumhy said after meeting with his Qatari counterpart Abdullah al-Attiyah. Oil accounted for 66 percent of government revenues in Oman last year, government statistics show.
The country plans to tender oil blocks for exploration including the offshore Block 40 near the Strait of Hormuz, the minister said. Another block that is both offshore and onshore will be tendered, as will a number of onshore blocks, he said.
“There are a few blocks that we have given data on to a number of companies,” he said, declining to name the companies.
Oil prices, which have gained 58 percent in the past year and rose above $86 a barrel today, are not rising because oil is in short supply, al-Rumhy said.
“There are many movers that move the oil price up and down these days and the last one on the list is supply and demand,” he said. “There is plenty of oil on the market.”
Al-Rumhy said Oman and Yemen are discussing the formation of a company to seek joint investment opportunities and have agreed to share information on petroleum resources near their common border.
Top Middle East News: {TOP GULF
--Editors: John Buckley, Randall Hackley
To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Tuttle in Doha at rtuttle@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss on sev@bloomberg.net
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