Posted on 06/13/2006 1:34:10 PM PDT by thackney
The chief executive of Libya's National Oil Company Shokri Ghanem National Oil Co. (NOI.YY) said his country was in talks to enter a joint venture with foreign companies to expand capacity in two refineries by more than 60%, or 210,000 barrels a day.
Currently the two refineries produce about 330,000 b/d, which would be increased to at least 550,000 b/d, Ghanem said speaking to foreign journalist in Tripoli Monday.
Companies from the U.S., Asia, Europe and India have expressed interest in refinery projects, some even proposing building new refineries, although Ghanem didn't offer more details.
Ghanem also said daily oil output would increase to 2 million b/d from the current 1.7 million b/d by the middle of 2007, and to 3 million b/d by 2010.
Ghanem, also Libya's former prime minister, had previously set a deadline for the 2 million b/d mark by year-end 2007.
NOC upstream advisor Faraj Saeed, who spoke at the same press conference, said the North African country's oil reserves would at least double from the current 39.1 billion barrels of oil of proven reserves once the country is fully explored.
Only about a quarter of Libya's territory has been explored. The country's exploration success ratio is about 35%, compared to 10% average elsewhere.
Libya's fourth bidding round for exploration blocks would be done in about four months, Ghanem said, adding the contractual conditions would remain similar to the previous one.
"There is a lot of competition," Ghanem said. "American companies are very much interested in working in Libya," he added. "But let me assure you that while we have opened our doors, we are not going to give special treatment to any country".
Libya is the seventh largest producer within OPEC. The prospect of developing those reserves got a boost after the U.S. removed the country from the list of nations that sponsor terrorism and said it would restore diplomatic relations with Moammar Gadhafi's government. The nations haven't had full diplomatic relations since 1980.
Another 40 billion barrels of oil reserves? I thought there weren't any more monster oil fields to be found?
Although I understand why they are interested (they have no choice), I hope they don't do this.
Putting more eggs into the Middle East basket is NOT in the best interests of the U.S..
I understand it helps with global warming if we build our energy projects outside the US.
Lybia's harmless and we gotta get oil from somewhere until our traitorous leaders do something about ANWR.
I think the Europeans are far more interested than the US. It's very close to their market, doesn't have the issues of transporting gas and oil from Russia through unstable countries via pipeline and gives them alternatives. Also, any new production coming online anywhere spreads out the threat of disruption and can only be welcome.
Hmmm - could be a big oil glut in the near future...
They're (Libya) going to have do something about that 90% tax rate on oil related profits...before investment is economical.
Note a few important points here. Back in the 50s and 60s, refineries were likely to be built in the US, not in 3d world nations. That's because if you had a billion dollars to invest in a refinery, you certainly weren't going to build it in Libya. You'd build it where you could be certain it would not be nationalized. And that was the US.
So the world's refinery capacity was in the US, and that meant that the world's oil had to go to the US to be refined. And that produced jobs in the US. And because the oil had to go to the US to be refined, that meant that there was an abundance of cheap refined petroleum products in the US, as compared to other nations. And that meant that if you were opening a factory that manufactured stuff and you needed chemicals or petroleum products or plastic or rubber, then you'd build your factory in the US because that's where the cheap refined petroleum was anyway, which was very convenient because you also did not want to risk having a factory nationalized by some 3d world nation.
So that meant there were lots of manufacturing jobs in the US, and life was good.
Then along came the environmentalists. They made it nearly impossible to build a refinery in the US. And that meant that oil companies had to build their refineries overseas. And when they built their refineries overseas, the factories moved overseas, too. You certainly aren't going to build a factory in the US if the refined petroleum you need is overseas. And all of the petroleum industry jobs and manufacturing jobs went overseas.
You can thank your friendly neighborhood environmentalist for all that.
Look at what I posted - I was referring to refineries. If the oil companies want to build refineries, I want them to build on U.S. soil. (which means knocking down a bunch of laws...)
Is the Presidents proposal to allow refineries on former military bases going anywhere?
Who would have predicted Lybia being helpful even a few years ago?
Hard to believe I'd be rooting for Quadafy.
You go there big guy.
they were recently taken off the terror watch list or something.
anyway, now Mommar is (officially)our buddy again.
WEll I tell ya, I won't be having the big dummy over for dinner any time soon. Hope their oil output helps though.
In the 50's and 60's, was the US an exporter of refined products?
Nice numbers for lots of potential.
Let's see how Bush's carrot works out.
From OBSERVATIONS ON PETROLEUM PRODUCT SUPPLY, NATIONAL PETROLEUM COUNCIL • DECEMBER 2004
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