MUSCAT — Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has provided the Ministry of Education with 400 copies of its recently issued Oil and Gas Dictionary for distribution to schools in the Sultanate. PDO’s donation was formally accepted by Saud bin Salim Al Balushi, director-general of curricula, at a ceremony yesterday attended by various PDO officials and senior ministry staff.

The PDO is the major exploration and production company in the Sultanate. It accounts for about 90 per cent of the country’s crude-oil production and nearly all of its natural gas supply.

The 320-page book, which was researched, compiled and produced entirely in house by PDO, contains a comprehensive list of oil- and gas-related terms with corresponding definitions in Arabic. Photographs, illustrations, diagrams and footnotes help to further elucidate some of the more complex terms listed in the dictionary.

Following the publication of the lexicon earlier this year as PDO’s contribution towards the national effort to designate Muscat as the ‘Capital of Arab Culture 2006’, the Ministry of Education approached PDO with a formal request to be provided copies for distribution to schools across the country.

“With the advancement of technology, new oil and gas terms are constantly coming into circulation, often outpacing efforts to have them included in technical dictionaries,” said Abdul Amir bin Abdul Hussain Al Ajmi, PDO’s external affairs and communications manager.

“For want of suitable dictionaries, non-English speakers often find themselves confounded by industry jargon. But with PDO’s new Oil and Gas Dictionary, Arabic speakers can familiarise themselves with the such terminology as easily as they would check out a word or phrase in a regular dictionary,” he added.

“This is certainly not the first time that PDO has teamed up with the Ministry of Education to spread knowledge to the country’s children,” Al Ajmi said.

“For the last three years or so we have also been publishing a quarterly educational magazine titled Al Manhal, which — with the aid of the ministry — is also being distributed to all schools in the Sultanate.”

“The Oil and Gas Dictionary is just the latest initiative we have taken to try to help the public learn about the industry that is the lifeblood of this nation. Last month we organised a course for local journalists on the enhanced oil recovery techniques that PDO intends to apply over the coming years to maintain its oil production levels. And we also have issued a booklet about the oil and gas industry for schoolchildren who regularly visit our Oil and Gas Exhibition Centre,” Al Ajmi added.