Editing Petroleum Development Oman (section)

===Maturity (1994–2002)===
By the end of 2000 PDO witnessed an increase in production. This was due to the increase in production arose from the application of the latest technology to increase [[Petroleum extraction|oil recovery]] in existing fields. And some of the production increase over the years was made up of "new oil" from fields that were not only found but also developed at an ever-accelerating pace. During the period 1967–1980 all of PDO's production came from 11 fields; by 1988, 50 fields provided the sum total of PDO's oil output; by 1990 it was 60, and in 1999 it was nearly 100.

When PDO's gas-exploration campaign in the early 1990s made it clear how bountiful the country's gas fields were, the Government decided to establish a completely new industry: the export of [[liquefied natural gas]] (LNG). In 1996 PDO concluded an agreement with the Government to develop the central Oman gas fields in order to supply gas to an LNG plant in Qalhat, near Sur. To fulfill its end of the agreement, the company had to drill wells, hook them up to a new gas processing plant at Saih Rawl, and then transport the processed gas via a 352-kilometre pipeline to Qalhat. Furthermore, PDO would then be responsible for guaranteeing the delivery of gas for 25 years.

This upstream LNG project, costing $1.2 billion, is the single biggest project in PDO's history. And it was executed as planned. The Saih Rawl Central Processing Plant and the gas pipeline from Saih Rawl to Qalhat were dedicated to the nation in November 1999, the first downstream cargo of LNG was shipped to Korea in April 2000, and His Majesty the Sultan officially opened the LNG plant six months later.

Having built up such momentum in its oil production as it entered the 1990s, the Company fully expected the trend to continue. Unfortunately, the company's field-development strategy for the start of the 21st century – based on incremental infill drilling with horizontal wells and extensive waterflooding – had its momentum dissipated before the waterflooding projects, which require comprehensive reservoir studies, could be fully implemented. The natural production-rate decline of its major oil fields eventually caught up with the Company at the start of the millennium. In 1997, the 35-year old [[Yibal]] field began to decline in production. Two scientific papers published in 2003 showed a decline of about 12 percent annually since 1997, with 5 percent being the regional average.<ref name="Oman">{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/08/business/oman-s-oil-yield-long-in-decline-shell-data-show.html|title=Oman's oil yield long in decline, Shell Data Show|date=2004|work=New York Times|access-date=November 15, 2018}}</ref>