What Is ICV in Oman? How In-Country Value Scoring Treats Maintenance Spend
Oman's ICV is not the UAE certificate scheme. What the six metric categories measure, how an O&M contract earns score, and what JSRS registration gates.
What Is ICV in Oman? How In-Country Value Scoring Treats Maintenance Spend
ICV in Oman is the share of contract spend retained inside the national economy. It began in the oil and gas sector and is now run by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, measured across local goods, subcontracted services, Omanisation, fixed assets and supplier development. Operators weigh it when awarding tenders.
Verification note. mem.gov.om and pdo.co.om were unreachable from our research environment. What follows comes from operator publications, the JSRS portal run on the Ministry's behalf, the programme's implementing consultancy and Omani press reporting. Anything unconfirmed against a Ministry document is flagged in line.
What ICV means in Oman
ICV is a spend retention measure, not a quality mark. OQ states it plainly: "ICV represents the total expenditure retained within the country, contributing to business development, human capacity building, and productivity stimulation."
It grew out of the Oil and Gas Blueprint begun in 2012, steered by a committee chaired by the Deputy Minister of Oil and Gas alongside the Ministry of Manpower, PDO and nine operators. That origin matters: ICV was designed by operator contracting teams, so it is expressed per contract, not as a company-level financial ratio. The current umbrella is Majd, the Ministry of Energy and Minerals local content programme launched on 22 September 2024.
Who it applies to
Two separate obligations catch maintenance contractors, and they are routinely confused.
Registration. Since 1 July 2021 every supplier bidding into an Omani oil and gas operator tender must hold an active certificate on the Joint Supplier Registration System (JSRS), run by Business Gateways on the Ministry's behalf and used by around twenty operators including PDO, OQ Exploration and Production, Shell Development Oman, BP and Oman LNG. National suppliers register for three years, international suppliers for one or three, with a ten-day grace period after expiry. A lapsed certificate takes you off the bid list whatever your ICV score.
Scoring. ICV is then evaluated inside the tender. Outside energy, the US International Trade Administration's Oman guide reports that ICV is embedded in government tenders in all sectors, requiring a minimum 10 per cent of contract value to be invested in Oman through local goods and services or training of Omani nationals. [NEEDS SOURCE: the Omani instrument setting that 10 per cent minimum.]
What it requires
Oman does not reduce ICV to one ratio the way the UAE does. The blueprint defines six metric categories, and a maintenance scope touches all six.
| Metric category | What it means on an O&M contract |
|---|---|
| Investment in fixed assets | Workshop, calibration lab, tooling, test rigs, mobile plant and stores held in Oman |
| Omanisation of workforce | Share of contract labour, technicians as well as supervision, held by Omani nationals |
| Local sourcing of goods | Spares, consumables and lubricants from Omani-registered suppliers, with an uplift where the item is Omani-manufactured |
| Local sourcing of sub-contracted services | NDT, rope access, valve overhaul, calibration, crane hire, waste handling placed locally |
| Development of national suppliers | Qualifying, auditing and training Omani vendors into your chain |
| National training, education and R&D | Apprenticeships, technical college placements, sponsored competency programmes |
Two mechanisms bite hardest on services contracts. The Ministry reports allocating 1.2 per cent of oil and gas contract value to the Employment and Training Support Centre, which collected RO 30.9 million in 2024. A mandatory list of 38 locally manufactured products and 63 services must also be reflected in tenders. [NEEDS SOURCE: the published mandatory list.]
How maintenance spend actually scores
Three things behave differently for maintenance than for a capital project, and this is where generic ICV explainers stop helping.
It is recurring, so it is proven repeatedly. A construction commitment closes out once. A five-year O&M contract is measured period after period against the plan submitted at bid. What counts is not the promise but what the spend ledger and timesheets show each quarter.
Labour dominates the denominator. Spares are usually a minority of contract value on a maintenance scope, so Omanisation carries the score, and technician-level national employment is the live variable rather than head office staffing. Sector Omanisation in oil and gas is reported between 89 and 93 per cent depending on source and period, so an expatriate-heavy crew starts below the norm.
Pass-through spares are the ambiguity. An imported part bought through an Omani stockist is not an Omani-manufactured part, and the two do not score alike. [NEEDS SOURCE: operator ICV template treatment of re-sold imported material, specifically whether only the distributor's value added counts or the full invoice value.]
Not the UAE certificate, and not Tawteen
- UAE. The National ICV Programme under MOIAT issues a company-level certificate from audited accounts via authorised certifying bodies. A supplier attribute, not a contract commitment.
- Qatar. Tawteen runs an ICV Scorecard (historical, from audited accounts) and an ICV Plan (forward-looking, per contract), both third-party certified.
- Oman. Neither, historically. ICV is demonstrated per contract to the operator, with JSRS handling registration. A Local Content Certificate giving preferential tender treatment was reported as being finalised through 2025. [NEEDS SOURCE: current status, issuing authority and scope of Oman's Local Content Certificate.]
What happens if you do not comply
We found no published Omani fine schedule for ICV underperformance. The verified consequences are commercial: loss of bid eligibility when a JSRS certificate lapses, and ICV weighting in evaluation. [NEEDS SOURCE: contractual remedies for missing committed ICV targets, including liquidated damages or hold-back provisions.]
Related terms
- Omanisation: the percentage of employees who are Omani nationals. The heaviest ICV lever on a labour-based contract.
- JSRS: the mandatory oil and gas supplier register since July 2021. Registration, not a score.
- LCC (Local Community Contractor): status for Omani firms whose owners live in an operator's concession area, giving priority procurement access with PDO, CCED and OXY.
- Riyada Card: SME registration used by operators such as OQ for restricted tenders.
- ICV Blueprint: the 2012 oil and gas strategy that defined the six metric categories still in use.
FAQ
Is there an ICV certificate in Oman like the UAE one? Not in the same form. The mandatory registration is JSRS, which is not an ICV score. A Local Content Certificate is reported as in development. Do not assume a MOIAT certificate is recognised in an Omani tender.
Does my UAE ICV score help me in Oman? No. The UAE score comes from your audited accounts against a MOIAT formula and is used by UAE entities. Omani operators evaluate the ICV of the contract you are bidding, against their own template.
How is subcontracted maintenance labour counted? Under local sourcing of sub-contracted services, and for the Omani nationals in that crew, under Omanisation. [NEEDS SOURCE: whether operators require sub-tier ICV evidence to be certified separately.]
Where a system helps
The ICV return needs data the maintenance system already produces: labour hours by employee against work orders, materials issued by part and supplier, subcontractor call-offs, and the plant register. These normally sit in three systems with no shared contract dimension, so the return gets rebuilt in a spreadsheet every quarter. Holding nationality on the employee record, country of origin and supplier registration on the material master, and a contract reference on every work order turns that return into a query. That is the job KreupAI eAMS does on Omani O&M scopes. It does not calculate your ICV score, and no software should claim to. It holds the evidence the calculation is built from.
Related reading: PDO Contractor Maintenance Standards: Work Control and Evidence Requirements (KB-020) and What Is ICV? In-Country Value Scoring, Explained for Manufacturers (KB-011).
Sources
- JSRS, Joint Supplier Registration System
- JSRS FAQs
- OQ, In-Country Value statement
- OQ Sustainability Report 2024
- DAI, Oman's Journey to In-Country Value
- Times of Oman, Ministry launches Majd local content programme
- Muscat Daily, Majd programme local content milestone
- US International Trade Administration, Oman: Selling to the Public Sector
- MOIAT, National In-Country Value Programme (UAE, for contrast)
- Tawteen ICV overview (Qatar, for contrast)