By Fatma Alarimi
MUSCAT, April 13 (Reuters) - State-controlled PetroleumDevelopment Oman (PDO), the country's top oil and gas producer,aims to lift crude output by about 5 percent over the next fouryears, managing director Raoul Restucci said on Monday.
"We aspire to reach 600,000 barrels per day by 2019," hetold reporters at an annual briefing on Oman's energy industry,adding the company would then maintain that production level for10 years.
PDO's planned average output for this year is 570,000 bpd,although it exceeded that amount in the first two months of theyear, Restucci said in March.
He said on Monday that PDO planned to invest over $40billion in its projects by 2019, but did not specify where thecompany would obtain the money.
PDO is owned 60 percent by Oman's government, 34 percent byRoyal Dutch Shell, 4 percent by Total and 2percent by Portugal's Partex, according to its website.
Salim Nasser al-Aufi, undersecretary at the Ministry of Oiland Gas, told the same briefing that government spending onOman's oil sector totalled $8.7 billion last year while spendingon natural gas production was $2.8 billion.
Oman lacks the ample oil and financial reserves of itswealthy Gulf neighbours and its state budget has been hit hardby the decline of oil prices.
But it is spending heavily to upgrade its energy industryinfrastructure and boost production. Oman hopes to increase itstotal crude oil output by 5 percent to 1 million bpd this year,Aufi said last month.
Issam al-Zadjali, chief executive of state-owned energyinvestment firm Oman Oil Co (OOC), said on Monday that OOC wouldrefocus more of its investments inside the country.
Sixty-five percent of the company's current investments arelocal; its investments in Europe are doing well but not those inIndia and China, Zadjali added.
OOC and its partners had invested a total of 9.4 billionrials ($24.4 billion) in companies within Oman as of 2013,according to its latest annual report.
State-owned Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Co(ORPIC) suffered a loss of $4 million last year, instead of the$725 million profit for which it was aiming, chief executiveMusab al-Mahrouqi told the briefing.
Changes in the market environment as oil prices plunged costthe company $571 million, while technical problems at ORPIC'sSohar refinery cut operations at its main refining unit by 76percent, costing a further $111 million. (Writing by Andrew Torchia)
