Nimr of Petroleum Development Oman

Monday, May 17, 2010

How is it in a desert oil field in Nimr Oman

When Petroleum Development Oman, a joint venture between Shell Oil and Partners, plus the Government of Sultanate of Oman found oil in the Southern Part of Omani Concession area, Mr.Julian Paxton, their Arabic translator and head of Public Affairs, suggested a name, Nimr, meaning Tiger.So this territory, or field which was found economical to drill, a brand new town ship was build in the desert with wide roads, permanent accommodation, contractor camps, and later one air strip.If you happened to be interested in seeing the place, right now, there are no direct airflights to NimrThere are two hotels in Nimr called PAC. That is for Private Accommodation Contractors. If you are going there just for few hours, and want to pray, there is huge masjid open for public and that is courtesy PDO.There is no precise head count of people in the desert, they are mostly, contractors , subcontractors and few floatsam guys who come to deliver goods and servies on call off arrangement.Food.All permanent residents have free food supply by their employers. There are two or three restaurants run by Malayalee Indians, customers are plenty, people who are bored with camp mess food come to eat fish curry, rice and chicken rice biriyani, dosa, puttu kadala, cassava with sardine and so on.Messes in the contractors camp serve some what quality food, with soups, salads, main dish, rice, chapathi, porotta, fish and meat curries, friend chicken, fruits and deserts.There is no bank in this place, however there is OMAN UAE Exchange, where you could receive and send money, - they also entertain Western Union transactions.There is an ATM machine, most bank cards would work on it. That is a busy place.There are two shops selling few electronic goods, TVs, gsm phones even phone cards.No facility to get a new sim card for mobile phones, no optians, no hospital. Just one doctor appointed by a hotel, with whom there is a call off arrangement by contractors. This place is 750 kms from Muscat and a vehicle would take you there in 8 and half hours.Oil company has its own chartered flights, which land in Marmul, 90 kms away from Nimr.To use the service you need be an employee of the PDO or contractor, flights normally take a halt at Fahud (25 minutes flying time to Fahud) and then on about 1 hour ten minutes flight to Marumul.Several buses plying from Salalah in the South to Muscat in North pass through Nimr, bus fare from Nimr to Muscat is 5.5 Omani Rials ( X 2.58 US Dollars for conversion)