Libya: Smaller foreign players including Lundin Oil are looking to increase their production activities with the new blocks.
Middle East Economic Digest, November 24
NOC sets end of year deadline
National Oil Corporation (NOC) has set a deadline of 31 December for foreign oil companies to submit bids for commercial licences to develop three new packaged blocks. Interest in the available acreage began in May when 50 companies attended a meeting in Tripoli outlining all the blocks on offer.
More than 14 foreign operating companies have expressed an interest in the licences, including the Royal Dutch/Shell Group and BP of the UK, Italy's Agip and France's TotalFinaElf. Shell created in June a subsidiary, Shell Libya Development Company, to head the group's return to Libya after an absence of nine years.
Europe's oil companies are keen to establish a head start in the development of the country's oil potential while US companies are excluded by the 1996 Iran Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA). The Oasis group of US companies including Amerada Hess, Conoco, Marathon Oil Company and Occidental Petroleum Corporation continue to maintain their old facilities but are not allowed to operate them. The status of the sanctions will be reviewed by Washington's new administration next year.
The three packages on offer comprise 14 blocks mainly in the Sirte, Murzuq, Ghadames and Cyrenaica basins. The first package includes Ml in the Murzuq basin, offshore blocks 0-9 and 0-10, Block S36 in the Sirte basin and an undefined area in the undeveloped Kufra basin. The second package is for the blocks S25 in the Sirte basin, CS, C6 and C7 in the Cyrenaica basin and G20 in the Ghadames basin. The final package includes blocks Sil and S59 in the Sirte basin, C3 in the Cyrenaica basin and offshore blocks 012 and 013, near the Egyptian border (MEED 28:7:00).
The datarooms for the remaining blocks on offer will be closed in early 2001, say sources at NOC. The unpackaged blocks account for 70 per cent of the country's unexplored acreage in the six key basins.
Smaller foreign players including Sweden's Lundin Oil and Ireland's Bula Resources are looking to increase their production activities with the new blocks. Progress has been slowed by over-subscription, say sources involved in bidding. |
