Category: Libya

LONDON Oct 25 (Reuters) – Libya has blocked efforts by U.S. company Marathon Oil to sell its stake in one of the country’s top oil ventures by moving to preempt a deal, sources said, highlighting the struggle investors face in cutting exposure to Libya’s unrest. Two years of turmoil since the Arab Spring and tough contract terms have prompted oil firms to reassess their role in Libya, and U.S. companies appear keenest to leave as they lack the proximity and infrastructure links that make North Africa attractive to their European peers. Sources told Reuters in July that Marathon was considering the sale of its stake in Libya’s Waha Oil Company, which has a maximum output capacity of 350,000 barrels per day (bpd) and produces the OPEC member’s main light sweet crude grade. Oil Minister Abdelbari Arusi later said Libya’s National Oil Corp (NOC) could buy Marathon’s stake though other […]

Click here to view full article at uk.reuters.com

Reuters More ROME, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Disruptions to oil production in Libya are “very worrying” to Italian oil and gas group Eni , its chief executive said on Wednesday, as losses there continue to weigh on its prospects for output and profit. A combination of strikes, militias and political activists have disrupted production at the majority of Libya’s oilfields and ports since the end of July. Eni, the world’s seventh-biggest oil major, is the largest foreign operator in Libya in terms of volume. Production disruptions there prompted the company in August to cut its yearly projections. “The Wafa field is shut, while gas is only produced for power generation inside the country,” Eni Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni said on the sidelines of a conference. Wafa is one of four major oil and gas areas that Eni operates in Libya in a joint venture with the National Oil Company. […]

Click here to view full article at www.rigzone.com

VIENNA, Oct. 21 (UPI) — Austrian energy company OMV said Monday an oil discovery in Libya, made with partners Repsol and Total, is its first since the country’s 2011 revolution. OMV said said the oil was discovered oil in the Marzuq basin in southwestern Libya. “This discovery in Libya confirms the potential of the country for OMV’s upstream activities,” Jaap Huijskes, an exploration director at the company, said in a statement Monday. Spanish energy company Repsol is the operator of the area. It said it verified the oil discovery when 528 barrels of oil per day flowed from the well during testing. “Following the good results obtained, Repsol will continue with the exploratory campaign, which began in 2013 and which will continue through the end of 2015,” it said in a statement. OMV, a minority partner in the Libyan operation alongside French energy company Total, said operations in the […]

Click here to view full article at www.upi.com

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – When gunmen snatched Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan from his Tripoli hotel last week, it was a rival armed militia he thanked for his rescue hours later. Even for Libyans accustomed to their democracy’s unruly beginnings, the drama at the Corinthia Hotel was a startling reminder of the power former fighters wield two years after they ousted Muammar Gaddafi, and the dangers of their rivalry. Police and troops from Libya’s nascent army were at the scene, but the former militiamen showed they are the arbiters in a struggle between rival tribal and Islamist leaders over the post-revolution spoils of the North African oil producer. Between them, they have edged Libya close to a new war that threatens the democratic gains of the NATO-backed revolt. Too weak to take back control of a country awash with Gaddafi-era weapons, Libya’s central government has been forced to try co-opt […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com