Oman

This week finds me in Oman, one of my favorite countries.

From the beach at Ras Al Hamra

It's not only that the scenery is gorgeous, but that the people are very friendly.  In 40 years Oman has come from a medieval feudal kingdom to a modern society, thoughtfully led by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said.  Oman is a well-run country with all the modern conveniences, but still retaining their essential cultural elements.


I was in Oman to teach a course, "The Business of Production System Optimization", that I developed while at Shell.  The course teaches the process of PSO using a number of tools including a full field simulator.  In the past I had used a full field simulator that I developed, but I also wanted to teach integrated production system modelling, so I redeveloped the course using Petroleum Experts, IPM software.  In the course, teams compete for the most profitable set of optimization opportunities that they can negotiate for implementation.  Their opportunities (combinations of pipeline cleanouts, workovers, re-routing, pipeline resizing, compressor re-wheeling, etc.) are run through IPM to determine the winner.  In this course I had 17 students from 8 countries.  We all had a great time and learned quite a lot about each other's operations. We ended the course with action planning to carry forward a number of valuable changes in the participants' companies.