LIBYA - Part 1 - The Prospects.Libya has the capacity to produce 1.6m b/d of crude oil. Its capacity in 2000 did not reach the 2m b/d target set by the political leadership in the late 1990s. This could be attained by 2010. Libya's oil production capacity has fallen from a peak of 3.3m b/d in late 1970, months after Col. Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi and fellow military officers staged a coup d'etat against the monarchy. The country's international isolation ended on April 5, 1999, when the UN Security Council suspended sanctions Sanctions is the plural of sanction. Depending on context, a sanction can be either a punishment or a permission. The word is a contronym. Sanctions involving countries: Tripoli (trĭp`əlē) or Tarabulus (täräb`  l handed over the
two suspects in the Lockerbie airliner bombing for trial by Scottish
prosecutors at Camp Zeist, the Netherlands.
Libya's economic prospects brightened shortly after the UN sanctions were suspended. They brightened further in late 2004, when Libya formally announced it was getting rid of its weapons of mass destruction Weapons that are capable of a high order of destruction and/or of being used in such a manner as to destroy large numbers of people. Weapons of mass destruction can be high explosives or nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological weapons, but exclude the means of transporting or (WMD WMD white muscle disease. ) in agreement with the US and UK. The development coincided with a bigger rise in crude oil prices as a result of an OPEC OPEC: see Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. OPEC in full Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Multinational organization established in 1960 to coordinate the petroleum production and export policies of its price defence strategy based on restraining RESTRAINING. Narrowing down, making less extensive; as, a restraining statute, by which the common law is narrowed down or made less extensive in its operation. supplies. This strategy is to continue at least through the coming year or two. Higher oil income has made Libya a most attractive market for foreign suppliers and contractors (see Downstream Trends of this week). With a rich geology - about 70% of Libya has never been explored - Tripoli has been making repeated efforts to bring in as many foreign investors as possible. Until major changes announced early this year, foreign firms had been put off by an inefficient administration and a stifling bureaucracy. Also there had been considerable uncertainty about the E&P prospects as Tripoli was yet to come up with a long-promised Petroleum Law offering foreign companies additional incentives (see Gas Market Trends of this week). A small number of onshore on·shore adj. 1. Moving or directed toward the shore: an onshore wind. 2. Located on the shore: an onshore beacon; an onshore patrol. adv. fields account for the bulk of oil production in Libya. The main oil producing regions onshore are the basins of Sirte, Ghadames and Murzuk to the west. The main offshore oil producing area is the Gulf of Gabes, including a block in the north shared with Tunisia (see profiles of the oil and gas fields in Part 2 next week). Libya exports about 1.2m b/d of crude oil and 140,000 b/d of refined oil products, plus limited volumes of gas liquids (NGLs). From 2004, it has been exporting natural gas by pipeline to Italy at the annual rate 8 BCM BCM Baylor College of Medicine BCM Become BCM Business Communications Manager (Nortel) BCM Broadcom Corporation BCM Business Continuity Management BCM Business Contact Manager (Microsoft) . A priority in Libya's export strategy is a form of integration between its upstream sector and the oil and gas markets of Europe (see Part 3). There is a vague separation in Libya between the political leadership and the decision makers for the petroleum sector. People close to Qadhafi, including some of his seven sons, have been interfering with the decision making system in the petroleum sector (see Part 4). |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion