Unlike other Persian Gulf oil producers, Oman’s petroleum industry has been in decline for over a decade, with many of its fields dating back to the 1930s now reduced to mere dry holes in the desert. To maintain output at a rate above 990,000 barrels per day (bpd), requires the use of expensive technology known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR), which makes Oman one of the most expensive places in the Gulf to pump crude. By the end of the decade a quarter of the country’s oil will be classified as “heavy” requiring extracting by expensive EOR, which requires the injection of water to increase the pressure in almost exhausted wells. Average production costs in these reservoirs can exceed $12 per barrel, compared with around $2 per barrel across the border in Saudi Arabia.