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

To: Tomas who wrote (1439)	12/8/1999 8:20:00 AM
From: Tomas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2742

US oil companies visiting their wells in Libya However, end of sanctions uncertain By MICHAEL DAVIS Houston Chronicle, December 8 U.S. oil companies barred from doing business in Libya have sent teams there to inspect oil wells they were forced to abandon 13 years ago, two of the companies involved said Tuesday. Those two companies, Houston-based Conoco and Marathon Oil, as well as Amerada Hess, Occidental Petroleum and Grace Petroleum, sent teams to Libya last weekend to assess their assets. This is their first look since they were denied access to since 1986 when the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Libya for supporting accused terrorists. "Hopefully this will be the first step toward restoration of relations between the U.S. and Libya," said Archie Dunham, Conoco chairman. Conoco also has been in discussions recently with Syria about doing business there, Dunham said. Syria also is under U.S. economic sanctions because the State Department lists it among the countries supporting terrorism. United Nations sanctions on Libya were suspended earlier this year when the country handed over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. The two suspects made their first appearance at a pre-trial hearing on the the case Tuesday in the Netherlands. Since the U.N. sanctions were lifted, companies from other countries have been returning to Libya to do business, but U.S. companies remain barred because of U.S. unilateral sanctions. The five U.S. oil companies were given permission to travel to Libya by the State Department in August. Marathon was producing as much as 400,000 barrels of oil per day from Libya when the sanctions were put on the country, said Susan Landreneau, company spokeswoman in Houston. Dunham said Conoco has no idea exactly how much oil its wells in Libya currently are producing. He has been a vocal critic of U.S. unilateral sanctions on foreign countries, especially those with large oil reserves such as Libya and Iran. Speaking to the Arthur Andersen Energy symposium, he said he believes many of these sanctions will be lifted before long. However, he didn't expect any action in the last year of the Clinton administration. "It will probably occur in the next two years or so, but I think it's going to take a new president," Dunham said, quickly adding that he blames both political parties for the sanctions. chron.com