From EOR pioneer to veteran in Oman’s mature fields

Oman

Jimmy Nesbit, SNF’s regional director for the Middle East, talks to The Energy Year about the company’s innovations in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), the advantages that allow it to maintain a significant market share in Oman and the increasing importance of polymer flooding in mature fields. SNF provides advanced polymer technologies to increase oil recovery.

How did Oman shape SNF’s EOR journey?
SNF is the global leader in polyacrylamide production. This chemical is used in various industries: mainly water treatment, mining and enhanced oil recovery. In the oil and gas sector, it serves as a viscosifier to improve oil extraction efficiency by mixing with water to push more oil to the surface while reducing the carbon footprint from production.
Another application in the oil and gas sector deals with hydraulic fracturing used for the production of shale gas and oil from non-conventional reservoirs. For this our products are used as drag reduction agents and for propane transportation.
Interestingly, our journey into EOR was triggered by Oman. In 2006, we took a leap of faith on a tender for PDO in the Marmul field, which was valued at around USD 200 million, equivalent to nearly the entire value of the company at that time. It was the world’s first full-field polymer flood project and remains one of the largest to date.
Our success in Oman established our reputation in the region and pushed SNF into the global EOR market. We’ve been growing at about 20% annually ever since. Today, we hold an approximate 80% market share in Oman’s EOR chemical market and work extensively with PDO and other operators such as CCED [CC Energy Development], Petrogas, Medco, OQ, Oxy and Daleel.

What advantages allow SNF to maintain a significant market share in Oman?
Our key differentiator is not only the product but the entire solution we provide around it. We offer end-to-end services, from chemical production to equipment design, engineering, installation, technical support and financing. We design and build the fit for purpose units to prepare and inject the polymers, manage logistics and even lease equipment for opex-based models and RSTC [Regional SNF Technology Center].
Our approach has been to act as a technical and financial partner to our clients. For instance, we fund the equipment and allow operators to pay us monthly, with the investment recovered through additional oil production. This model makes it much easier for operators to commit to pilots and full-field projects.

What does a typical EOR project lifecycle with SNF look like?
A typical project begins with lab studies to identify the right polymer formulation. This is followed by core-flood testing, which simulates reservoir conditions to gauge oil recovery. Then comes the injectivity test, which means injecting polymer into the real reservoir at a small scale. If results are promising, we move into a pilot phase. Pilots usually last six months and are followed by evaluations for potential full-field development.
Overall, the timeline from lab study to full deployment can take 2-4 years. During this process, we often deploy plug-and-pump containerised systems, which require minimal upfront investment and can be leased.
This makes pilots financially feasible and lowers risk for operators. In many cases, as seen with CCED and Petrogas, the pilot equipment remains in use long after its intended use period.
Moreover, it only takes a very short time to realise a field pilot using preparation units in stock in the country.

What role will polymer flooding play as fields in Oman and the broader GCC region become increasingly mature?
In Oman’s mature oilfields, traditional water injection for pressure maintenance has resulted in fields producing over 90% water, significantly increasing costs and CO2 emissions from extensive water handling. SNF addresses this by injecting polymers to viscosify the water, reducing the amount of water produced – typically by a factor of three per barrel of oil – thus lowering costs, energy consumption and emissions while enhancing oil recovery.
Following PDO’s full-field polymer flooding project launched in 2010, this approach has become increasingly critical in Oman, as well as in Kuwait and the UAE, where similar maturity issues and ambitious 2030-2035 production targets are pushing operators to use polymer flooding solutions.

How will your new facilities in Salalah and Muscat support local polymer manufacturing and research?
We initially established our logistics hub in Salalah in 2012, and we are now developing a processing plant there to manufacture up to half of Oman’s polymer consumption locally. While local production is currently more expensive than importing, we’re proceeding in phases, aiming for full local manufacturing eventually with competitive pricing.
Although our Salalah facility could potentially supply other GCC countries, realistically, each country prefers its own local production for ICV [in-country value] reasons. Thus, we might set up smaller manufacturing plants across the region.
Simultaneously, our Regional SNF Technology Center in Muscat conducts critical R&D, adapting polymer formulations to meet specific reservoir conditions such as temperature, salinity and viscosity.
Conditions in the GCC can vary widely. For instance, Oman has relatively easy conditions compared to the UAE, where temperatures reach 140°degrees Celsius and salinity levels 200 grams per litre. This research helps ensure polymer effectiveness and project feasibility across diverse environments.

How important is Oman and the wider GCC region for SNF in terms of growth potential, and what does success in this region look like?
Globally, SNF generates approximately USD 5 billion annually, with oil and gas representing about 30% of total revenue. Currently, the GCC region accounts for just 5-6% of our global revenues since the region mainly has pilot EOR projects.
However, significant growth is expected as Oman, Kuwait and the UAE move towards full-field polymer flooding developments. We anticipate that GCC contributions could rise to 5-10% of total revenue in the next 5-10 years, especially as Oman advances major projects in fields such as Marmul and Nimr.
In this context, success for us means capturing a substantial market share of these upcoming projects in Oman. PDO alone plans more than 10 full-field developments in the next five years. Another key factor would be achieving full local polymer manufacturing in Oman, enhancing ICV.
Additionally, we see immense opportunity in Saudi Arabia, where transitioning directly from water flooding to polymer flooding could be highly beneficial. While currently we only operate water shut-off projects there, successfully entering the Saudi EOR market represents an important growth objective for us.
Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf counties, are also developing non-conventional reservoirs, which will be extensively supported by SNF technologies, leveraging our global experience as the leader in this sector of the oil and gas industry.

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