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Gold/Mining/Energy : Lundin Oil (LOILY, LOILB Sweden) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greywolf who wrote (1182)	7/8/1999 12:34:00 PM
From: Tomas	Respond to of 2742

Relations restored with Libya - Financial Times, July 8 By David Buchan, Diplomatic Editor Britain is to end its 15-year diplomatic rift with Libya which yesterday accepted "general responsibility" for the 1984 killing of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher outside its London embassy. Libya promised to pay her family compensation. Announcing Libya's concession in the House of Commons, Robin Cook, foreign secretary, said Britain would speedily resume full diplomatic relations and send an ambassador to Tripoli. The breakthrough follows Libya's separate agreement to deliver the two Libyan suspects in the 1988 Pan Am airliner bombing over Lockerbie to the Netherlands for a trial under Scottish law. As a result, selective United Nations trade and air transport sanctions have been suspended. But Britain insisted on progress in the case of WPC Fletcher before restoring the diplomatic relations it ended after the 25-year-old officer was killed by shots fired from the embassy in St James Square. After discussions with UK officials outside Britain, Abudl-Ati alObeidi, Libya's ambassador to Rome, finalised a joint statement with Mr Cook in London. Libya expresses deep regret for the policewoman's death, undertakes to pay "appropriate" compensation to her family through the social fund of the Libyan police association and promises to co-operate with the UK police investigation into her murder. Scotland Yard yesterday hailed it as a "positive step" and looked forward to "real co-operation" from Libya. The joint statement came after brinkmanship from the government, which dissuaded an all-party group of MPs from accompanying a delegation from the British-Libyan Business Group to Tripoli on Sunday. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham, the businessman leading the delegation of 16 companies, expressed delight at the breakthrough, which would have "enormous political and economic benefits". Last year the UK exported £237m worth of goods to Libya, and imports totalled £149m, according to the Department of Trade and Industry. Private sector sources say these figures understate trade between the two countries. The suspension of UN sanctions is expected to lift sales of aircraft and oil equipment to Libya. US sanctions may not be lifted until the opening, next spring, of the trial of the Lockerbie bomb suspects.

To: Greywolf who wrote (1182)	7/8/1999 1:00:00 PM
From: Tomas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2742

UK firms race to Libya as relations open up By Richard Meares LONDON, July 8 (Reuters) - British executives are hopping over to Libya on the first direct flights for years, to cash in on an expected trade boom now sanctions are suspended and diplomatic ties restored. For Libya, the end of U.N. sanctions in April should herald a new era of increased business with the outside world. For Britain, the resumption of diplomatic relations on Wednesday means its companies are now as free as their main European rivals to capitalise on a key Arab market. Oil and gas, construction, telecommunications in a country with no mobile phones and even tourism -- pristine beaches and roman cities preserved by the sand -- may offer ripe pickings. ''The end of sanctions is sure to increase foreign business in Libya, particularly on the energy side,'' said Walter Drysdale, who is organising a trade mission to Libya next week, the first in which British government officials will take part. Engineers Costain, Rolls Royce and Thames Water International are also involved. Just last week, a separate trade mission -- including Lloyds, Taylor Woodrow Construction and Tate & Lyle -- set off for Col Muammar Gaddafi's Libya. They left before London reestablished ties once Tripoli agreed to help investigations into the 1984 shooting of a policewoman outside its London embassy which led to the rupture. ''Contrary to perceptions, there has never been a break-off in trade, and we've been buying their oil,'' said Ronald Asprey of the British-Libyan Business Group arranging the visit. British exports to what is officially known as the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah were worth 269 million pounds ($418.5 million) in 1997 and imports from Libya 231 million. It was the UK's 12th largest market in the Middle East/North Africa, from number two in the 1970s. Iran, with which Britain has also just restored ties, offers good prospects too. Throughout the ice age in Anglo-Libyan relations, trade went on and even the imposition of U.N. sanctions after the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 only made doing business more bothersome. The government neither encouraged nor disencouraged trade, but export guarantees and its help in promotion were absent. The U.N. ban on flights into Libya and limits on exports of sensitive oil equipment were suspended in April, after Tripoli handed over for an international trial the two men accused of bombing a Pan Am Flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270. British Airways swiftly restored flights in June. A U.N. arms embargo remains -- as do separate sanctions by Washington which still prevent its companies operating freely in what it has long seen as a pariah state. British firms will now get official support to help them compete with Italy, Libya's biggest trade partner and former colonial power, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and others. Italy buys much of Libya's oil production that reached 1.3 million barrels a day in June. It is business as usual for the British already there, such as engineering consultants Mott MacDonald. ''We have been there more than 20 years and we have never had any problems, but it will be good to have consular access,'' said director Peter Chesworth. ''This thaw opens up opportunities for new companies, but for those already estabished there will not be a great deal of difference,'' said Ken Beedle of Brown & Root, U.S. consultants who have operated in Libya through their UK unit. They are overseeing the world's largest capital project, the Great Man-Made River, to pipe water 1,500 km (1,000 miles) from vast basins under the Sahara to the thirsty coastal cities of Benghazi and Tripoli, a grand Gaddafi work costing $20 billion. Other business leaders said that welcome as the better ties were, Libya would only really reach its full potential when it raised tight restrictions on its tiny private sector. biz.yahoo.com