Masirah Oil Limited (MOL) announced the successful drilling of an appraisal well in the Yumna oil field off Masirah Island in Block 50 offshore Oman’s eastern seaboard, according to Oman Observer.

The Yumna oil field, previously known as GA South field, was discovered in early 2014. At that time, MOL declared its first-ever hydrocarbon discovery in the 17,000 square kilometers (km2) concession off the Sultanate’s east coast.

It is worth noting that MOL holds a 100% interest in Block 50 offshore Oman’s eastern seaboard.

A second exploration well was successfully drilled and reached a depth of more than 3,000 meters into the Cambrian formation. It is a must to highlight that in 48 hours only, hydrocarbons flowed and the well achieved a restricted flow rate of 3,500 barrels per day (bbl/d) of light crude oil with high quality and without water production from a sandstone reservoir of excellent quality.

Furthermore, the Yumna-1 well production testing is expected to commence in January 2020 with oil produced during the field’s appraisal planned for temporary storage on an Aframax tanker. The tanker’s capacity is less than 120,000 metric tons.

In November 2019, MOL named Foresight Offshore Drilling Limited as the winner of the drilling rig contract for the Yumna-1 well appraisal, in addition, the jack-up Foresight Driller IX will be deployed in the drilling of the appraisal well. Moreover, the company had earlier targeted to accomplish its first oil production from the Block before the end of 2019.

With an eye on such a successful drilling, it signifies the potential of the Yumna oil field’s hydrocarbon production. Besides, Block 50 is estimated to have gross mean unrisked prospective resources of around 4,743 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe).