Sanctions Force US Firms to Skip this week's Libya Oil Meeting
WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) - U.S. economic sanctions will keep American oil firms from participating in this week's meeting in Libya to discuss new oil exploration and production sharing agreements in the North African country, a U.S. State Department official said Monday.
Libya's National Oil Corp (NOC) has invited about 50 energy firms from the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia to take part in the Wednesday meeting in Tripoli.
But no U.S. oil company representatives have asked the Clinton administration for a waiver from U.S. law that forbids travelling or investing in Libya, according to the State official.
"Our understanding is they aren't going to apply for waivers to go," he said.
Even if American oil executives wanted to attend the Libyan meeting, they probably would not get the required waivers because of current Washington's investment policy toward Tripoli, said the official.
"There are sanctions against investments in Libya," he said.
U.S. oil companies were forced to pull out of the North African nation by President Reagan since 1986 under the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act.
And the American unilateral sanctions against Libya still bar companies such as Conoco, Amerada Hess, Occidental Petroleum and Grace Petroleum, subsidiary of chemical giant W.R. Grace & Co., from returning now to the oil-rich country as investors.
The Clinton administration last year however issued waivers to these oil companies to visit Libya and check on their drilling structures that were abandoned when sanctions were imposed.
But those waivers could not apply for this week's meeting with Libya's NOC because new investment opportunities, which U.S. law forbids, would be discussed, the official said.
Libya wants the help of foreign oil firms to increase the country's oil production to 2 million barrels per day (bpd) from the current 1.4 million bpd.
Libya has 12 oilfields with reserves of one billion barrels of crude or more, and two others with reserves of 500 million to one billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Other countries have resumed diplomatic and business relations with Libya after the country turned over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am airplane over Lockerbie Scotland that killed 270 people.
Nonetheless, the United States will continue its hardline against Libya, a top U.S. State Department official told a Senate panel last week.
"We expect to maintain core unilateral economic sanctions prohibiting U.S-Libyan business," said Ronald Neumann, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. |
