MUSCAT: OQ Exploration & Manufacturing SAOG (OQEP) – the upstream arm of Oman’s built-in power team OQ – has secured its inaugural world credit standing, with S&P World Rankings assigning the corporate a ‘BBB-‘ long-term issuer credit standing and a ‘gcAA-‘ Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regional scale ranking, each with a Solid outlook.
The maiden investment-grade ranking marks crucial milestone for OQEP following its list at the Muscat Inventory Alternate in past due 2024, offering impartial validation of the corporate’s monetary power and adorning its status amongst world buyers and lenders.
S&P stated the global-scale ranking displays OQEP’s place as a core subsidiary of state-owned father or mother OQ SAOC, which keeps a 75-per cent stake within the corporate. The rankings company famous that OQEP contributes between 45 and 60 in line with cent of the OQ Team’s reported EBITDA and performs a pivotal position in producing the money flows that improve the crowd’s broader strategic transition in opposition to lower-carbon companies.
“OQ E&P’s creditworthiness is closely aligned with OQ’s ‘bbb-‘ group credit profile,” S&P stated, including that the upstream manufacturer is strategically and operationally built-in inside the wider OQ Team.
The ranking company highlighted OQEP’s robust running basics, together with preferential rights to take part in new upstream blocks because the Omani executive’s most well-liked spouse, an 11-year proved and possible (2P) reserve lifestyles as of the tip of 2025, and long-term Exploration and Manufacturing Sharing Agreements (EPSAs) protecting round 90 in line with cent of manufacturing.
Those agreements permit the corporate to get well exploration and building prices earlier than benefit sharing with the federal government, whilst additionally incorporating deferred cost-recovery mechanisms all through classes of decrease oil costs or manufacturing. The contracts raise no royalty bills, and the federal government assumes accountability for source of revenue tax on its percentage of hydrocarbon manufacturing, supporting profitability and cash-flow resilience.
S&P additionally pointed to OQEP’s conservative monetary coverage as a key credit score power. The corporate targets to handle internet debt-to-EBITDA under 1.0 occasions beneath commonplace marketplace stipulations, with an higher ceiling of one.5 occasions even beneath a conservative oil worth assumption of $55 in line with barrel. The company expects those metrics to stay with ease inside of goal thru 2026 and 2027 in spite of possible volatility in world crude markets.
Since its established order in 2009, OQEP has expanded manufacturing by means of greater than thirteen-fold thru a mixture of natural expansion, acquisitions and participation within the Omani executive’s “back-in rights” programme, beneath which it might achieve stakes in commercially confirmed upstream traits at historic charge.
S&P nonetheless famous that OQEP’s industry profile stays constrained by means of its focus in Oman, midsized running scale and publicity to the cyclical nature of the hydrocarbon sector. On the finish of 2025, the corporate reported working-interest manufacturing of 224,000 barrels of oil similar in line with day and 2P reserves of 0.9 billion barrels of oil similar.
The company additionally cited Oman’s strategic export infrastructure as a supportive issue. In contrast to different Gulf manufacturers, Omani crude exports don’t depend at the Strait of Hormuz, with oil shipped basically thru Mina Al Fahal at the Arabian Sea. This has lowered the rustic’s publicity to maritime disruptions all through contemporary regional tensions and bolstered the resilience of its hydrocarbon exports.
