The budget draft, which still needs to be approved by the consultative Shoura Council and signed by the sultan, put 2012 expenditures at 10 billion rials and revenue at 8.8 billion.  
That would put the 2012 budget shortfall at 5.4 percent of the sultanate's gross domestic product, according to Reuters calculations. A Reuters poll in September forecast a fiscal surplus of 4.0 percent in 2012 and 5.0 percent in 2011 due to robust oil prices.
"We set aside more expenditure for 2012 to create more jobs since we expect thousands of graduates to leave higher education next year, which results in a higher deficit," the official at the ministry's budget office, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
The small non-OPEC oil producer has originally planned to spend 8.1 billion rials in 2011. But protesters demanding jobs and an end to graft prompted Sultan Qaboos bin Said to promise a $2.6 billion spending package in April.  
As a result, this year's fiscal spending was expected to reach about 9.1 billion rials, Finance Minister Darwish Al-Balushi said in October.
The Shoura Council was expected to discuss the 2012 budget draft later on Wednesday. 
The new budget is based on an average oil price of $75 per barrel, well above $58 penciled in for 2011, and on an expected daily oil production of 920,000 barrels, the official said.
"We will cover the deficit from our foreign reserves if the price of oil does not average $88 per barrel," he said. 
Oman sold its oil at an average price of $102 a barrel in January-August 2011, and the average production reached 883,000 barrels a day. 
Oman, whose debt to GDP is forecast by the IMF to be the lowest in the Gulf at 4.0 percent this year, plans to issue  development bonds worth around 150 million rials before the end of 2011.  
The official also said the government was expected to create 80,000 new jobs next year. Sultan Qaboos has already announced plans for 50,000 new job opportunities among other measures earlier this year.  
Oman's wealthier Gulf Arab neighbors pledged $10 billion in aid in March to help the sultanate to improve living conditions and ease tensions. Balushi has said the first part of the package, which is spread over 10 years, should arrive in the first quarter of 2012.