Austria's OMV has reported a rapid recovery of
its Libyan oil production following the end of the revolution. It reached 25,000
b/d in the first quarter of 2012 and the pre-war rate of 34,000 b/d in the
second quarter.
National Oil Company (NOC), its Agoco
subsidiary and Wintershall are working together on a €31.4 million project to
construct a 100,000 b/d capacity 55km crude oil pipeline which will help boost
oil exports The installation is scheduled to be completed in August and the
project as a whole will be handed over to Agoco in March 2013.
Repairing the Libyan economy is proving more difficult than
forecast. Although the damage to the oil infrastructure is not particularly
severe, it is geographically widespread and the reconstruction activity has been
fragmented. According to industry sources the final return to the 1.6 million
b/d pre-war levels of oil output could take until the end of 2012. Meanwhile,
the political situation has been subject to slow improvement but security
problems still remain. Outside the oil sector there is talk of large scale
investments that could be made in the short term which would provide an enormous
boost but only if the IOCs are convinced, unlike Shell, of the long-term
profitability of their Libyan oil operations.
This week, in an example of the way the weak international
market is impacting on the Libyan oil industry, an NOC spokesman announced that
the August official selling price of its bench mark Es Sider crude is at the
lowest level in almost three years. It was cut by US$1.60 a barrel to a discount
of US$1.30 to North Sea Dated Brent.
For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya Politics & Security.
© 2012 Menas Associates
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