Exclusive Q&A: An Inside Look at PDO’s Effort To Scale Hydraulic Fracturing in Oman’s Low-Pressure Oil Reservoirs

_ Ahmed Al-Jahdhami, a senior petroleum engineer and hydraulic fracturing subject matter expert for Petroleum Development Oman’s (PDO) southern oil fields, spoke with JPT about the company’s evolving approach to hydraulic fracturing in low‑pressure oil reservoirs since its earliest days of development in 2016. Al‑Jahdhami recently discussed this work at the SPE International Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference (IHFTC) in Muscat, Oman, where PDO served as the host operator. In addition to improved well performance, he highlighted how hydraulic fracturing is beginning to shape internal decision-making across the organization. Last year, PDO hydraulically fractured a horizontal well in one of its low‑pressure fields, achieving production rates that were about 70% higher than nearby nonfractured wells. At the same time, PDO has reduced average stimulation costs from about 1 million per well in 2019 to roughly 300, 000 today, with the grand ambition being to achieve 50, 000 per stage. In the following Q&A, Al‑Jahdhami discusses how PDO’s fracturing strategy has evolved, the trade‑offs guiding design and material selection, and how it has leveraged knowledge transfer regionally and from further afield to open more of Oman’s reservoirs to development. Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. JPT: At the SPE IHFTC in Muscat, you spoke about a shift in mindset around hydraulic fracturing at PDO. Can you elaborate with us here on this transition? Al‑Jahdhami: Even though PDO has been at the forefront of hydraulic fracturing in the region for many years, it was still perceived by many as a niche technology associated mainly with deep, tight‑gas reservoirs. When we started discussing its application in shallower, lower‑pressure reservoirs, or in reservoirs that had historically been produced without stimulation, it took a little bit of time to convince ourselves that it was really needed. After all, these wells will produce even if you don’t frac them. What changed was the fact that we have already produced much of the easy oil. That’s why we launched very intensive workshops to identify the scope, limitations, and any levers that we could pull to apply hydraulic fracturing in this new environment. Things are changing now, and just before the conference last year, we completed our second horizontal well. That was a true multistage frac with 14 stages, and we did that in 2½ days. That is a huge step up from where we were before, and more engineers and managers are now starting to think about using hydraulic fracturing to unlock more of these difficult wells that sometimes have borderline economics. This is the mindset shift that I was talking about, because until recently, hydraulic fracturing was used predominantly on existing wells to prolong their lives or revive them by removing damage, either caused by drilling or long‑term production.