Oman to award $1bn oil deals by end 2011

State-run Oman Petroleum Company (PDO) is planning to award $1.04bn of contracts for work in its oil and gas fields before the end of this year, a company official said on Tuesday. "We are processing the tenders submitted for various oilfields contracts, including oil drilling and gas supply," the PDO official, who is not authorised to talk to the media, said. "The total contracts to be awarded by end of this year will be worth about OR400m ($1.04bn)."Six contracts are to be awarded this year at the Hasirah and Hawqa gas fields, as well as steam injection work at the Al Ghubar oil field and a power station at Lekhwair, he said.Oman is a small, non-OPEC oil producer with an output of 876,000 barrels per day (bpd) in June 2011, according official Joint Data Initiative (JODI) figures. It has 5.5 billion barrels of oil reserves, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).The discovery of Al Ghubar South in 2009 could be the most promising discovery in Oman in years, adding up to 1 billion barrels to reserves, the EIA website says, citing oil ministry officials.The sultanate's oil production in the first six months of this year rose 3 percent while exports were down by 1.8 percent compared to the first half of 2010, according to finance ministry data.