Libya: Indians surrender licence areas

State-owned Oil India (OIL) and its partner India Oil Corporation (IOC) have relinquished their two onshore Sirte basin oil exploration areas acquired in the first EPSA-IV licensing round in early 2005. OIL chairman and managing director NM Borah told journalists in Delhi on 27 January that the operations were not commercially viable and that the company had applied to NOC to give them up early in the new year.

OIL and IOC completed the minimum work programmes for both areas on time and on budget. They drilled a pair of exploratory wells in area 86 and one well in 102/4. "Though hydrocarbons presence has been established in the blocks, it was not found to be commercially exploitable," Borah told the Hindu Business Line, a Chennai-based business and financial online daily.

The companies are partners with Algeria's Sonatrach, which is the exploration operator in areas 95 and 96, obtained in the fourth licensing round in December 2007. The work programme is progressing on schedule.

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