How is it in a desert oil field in Nimr Oman

There are several places in the Arab world called Nimr. This Nimr I am taling about is in Sultanate of Oman. Oman is next to Saudi Abrabia in the map.

Nimr is about 800 kms South of Muscat and about 10 hours by road from Muscat. Road is almost straight then a bend towards the left on the road to Salalah. Nimr is only 200 kms from Salalah, but most people, rather expats arrive in Muscat and then take a plane or bus to Nimr.

There are two hotels in Nimr called PAC. That is for Private Accommodation for Contractors. The owner of this oil city is a compay called PDO (petroleum development Oman, a joint venture between Government of Oman and multinatkional oil company Shell) If you are going there just for few hours, and want to pray, there is huge masjid open for public and that is courtesy PDO.

There is no precise head count of people in the desert, they are mostly, contractors , subcontractors and few floatsam guys who come to deliver goods and servies on call off arrangement.

Food.

All permanent residents have free food supply by their employers. There are two or three restaurants run by Malayalee Indians, customers are plenty, people who are bored with camp mess food come to eat fish curry, rice and chicken rice biriyani, dosa, puttu kadala, cassava with sardine and so on.

Messes in the contractors camp serve some what quality food, with soups, salads, main dish, rice, chapathi, porotta, fish and meat curries, friend chicken, fruits and deserts.

Watering Hole.

There is bar in the Permanent Accommodation for main Oil Company, Petroleum Development Oman. (PDO). People in the PDO and those who are working for its contractors are welcome. Not very expensive. The bar is decorated with picgtures of pin up girls.

There is no bank in this place, however there is OMAN UAE Exchange, where you could receive and send money, - they also entertain Western Union transactions.

There is an ATM machine, most bank cards would work on it. That is a busy place.
There are two shops selling few electronic goods, TVs, gsm phones even phone cards. Ready mades for men, safety boots and so on.If you have your Resident Card or Passport with you , it is possible to buy a sim card for local phone use.

No hospital. Just one doctor appointed by a hotel, with whom there is a call off arrangement by contractors. If you are a worker here and has a toothache, bad luck, you need to travel 200 kms to Salalah or 800 kms to Muscat.

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Oil company has its own chartered flights, which land in Marmul, 90 kms away from Nimr.


A PDO Chartered bus service will carry all air passengers from Nimr to MARMUL in one hours time.No extra charge for that The bus is very comfortable, provides biscuites and cold water and canned juice in the bus. Every passanger in the Oil field area has to be belted to seat, be it a car, truck or bus.

To use the service you need be an employee of the PDO or contractor, flights normally take a halt at Fahud (25 minutes flying time to Fahud) and then on about 1 hour ten minutes flight to Marumul.

Several buses plying from Salalah in the South to Muscat in North pass through Nimr, bus fare from Nimr to Muscat is 5.5 Omani Rials ( X 2.58 US Dollars for conversion)

If you even happen to see a sedan car , mind you, it is a worker coming live in the desert for a "hitch" which is normally 14 days. The Omani nationals work 14 days, and after that they are given 14 days off.

Among expats, those who are lucky, the work scheudle is 5 weeks on, 5 weeks off. Most Indians work here for one year and then go home for a month's leave.

Your leave and other terms of employment depends on who your emplyer is.

Most accommodations are wired for satellite TV, but the TV and satellitelite receiver must be paid for by user.

Those who live in the PAC, perhaps gets similar facility, the satellite link up from the facility, rest of the hard ware from the user himself.

There are no permament women residents here. Occasionally one finds a woman passenger the aircraft, they come stay for one or two days and then leave. They aare here in the capacity of an offcial in one of the companies here.