Libya’s Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG) threatened on Sunday to close all oil and gas facilities in the country’s western region after the end of a 10-day deadline to authorities to meet their demands, including a 67% salary rise.
Political instability has hindered Libya’s oil production, but the country is eager to regain its energy prominence with a goal of reaching 2 million barrels per day.
Substantial foreign investment is required to modernize Libya’s aging oil infrastructure, including pipelines and storage facilities.
Despite challenges, Libya’s significant untapped oil reserves present a substantial opportunity for economic growth and energy sector revival.
Speakers participating during a finance panel at the Libya Energy&Economic Summit (LEES) this week shared that the country’s planned licensing rounds – for domestic companies as well as an international tender – will be launched soon, in line with national targets to more than double oil production.
The Director of the Media Office at the Tripoli based Libyan Ministry of Oil and Gas, Ahmed Al-Tarhouni, told Libya Herald, that talk of the National Oil Corporation’s (NOC) intention to contract with a coalition of Eni / Adnoc /Total and grant them a 40 percent share of production is a legal violation that should be alerted to.
Oil-rich Libya has been fighting to get its oil industry back on track over the last decade, since the Arab Spring and subsequent political instability. Following the failed presidential elections of 2021, it finally appeared that Libya’s oil and gas industry was getting back on track. More foreign investment was coming in and several discoveries showed great promise for the country’s oil fields. However, a recent devastating storm has plunged into a humanitarian crisis, meaning its energy revenues and international support will be vital for its recovery.
Given the economic mayhem that energy price-fuelled inflation has caused for Western governments since Russia’s invasion of Crimea, the last thing they want is another oil production shutdown in Libya that would push oil prices higher again.
Libya’s Oil and Gas Outlook Continues to Look Stronger in The State of African Energy Q1 2023 Report
When global oil prices reached a 15-year high in 2022, Libya, which holds 3% of the world’s hydrocarbon reserves and 39% of Africa’s, was unable to take advantage of the windfall.
Given that Libya has exhibited all the stability of a puff adder on benzedrine since the West removed its longstanding leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011, it is little wonder that it has found attracting foreign investment into its flashpoint oil and gas sector a tad tricky since then.
CAIRO — Italy’s prime minister held talks in Libya on Saturday with officials from the country’s west-based government focusing on energy and migration, top issues for Italy and the European Union. During the visit, the two countries’ oil companies signed a gas deal worth $8 billion — the largest single investment in Libya’s energy sector in more than two decades.
Given the fragile supply-demand balance in the global energy market and the toxic inflation-interest rate mix with which many developed economies have been struggling, news of additional oil and gas supplies is welcome.