Libya's NOC confirms 'routine' probe into oil contracts with foreign majors

Libya's prosecutor general is reviewing oil contracts with international oil companies concluded by the ousted regime of Moammar Qadhafi as a routine measure, the National Oil Company's marketing director Ahmed Shawki said Monday.

"We don't have any information about actual investigations inside the NOC. We don't have any issues so far with the international oil and gas contracts, and business is going forward," Shawki told Platts by telephone from Tripoli.

He was commenting on a report in the Wall Street Journal that the transitional government in Tripoli and the US Securities and Exchange Commission were investigating the activities of a number of oil companies such as Italy's Eni, the biggest operator in Libya, and France's Total.

The Wall Street Journal in a report Sunday quoted Abdelmajeed Saad, the deputy Libyan prosecutor, as saying that the companies were being investigated for alleged "financial irregularities."

The newspaper cited a March letter from the prosecutor's office to the NOC internal auditor asking him to supply oil company documents. It said the letter mentions oil transactions between NOC and international traders Vitol and Glencore as examples of documents it was seeking. It added that while the probe is focusing on Qadhafi-era contracts, the letter indicates that the request includes activities during the civil war last year.

But Shawki stressed that the work being carried out by the prosecutor general was a routine review of all production-sharing contracts and oil sales contracts as part of the transitional government's commitment to transparency and to make sure there were no irregularities.

"So far, I don't believe NOC has any problems with international oil companies, or contracts signed during the Qadhafi regime," Shawki said.

"As I said before, this is just a routine due diligence work done by the General Prosecutor for financial and contractual irregularities, and nothing more than this," he added.

Shawki said he could not comment about oil sales contracts concluded by the transitional government during the crisis because he was not involved. 

Neither Glencore nor Vitol could be contacted for comment because of the Easter holiday.

However, both Total and Eni have said that they are cooperating with the SEC investigation.

Eni said in a Form 20-F filing to the US SEC last week that on June 20, 2011, it received from the US regulator "a formal judicial request of collection and presentation of documents (subpoena) related to Eni's activities in Libya from 2008 to 2011."

It added that the subpoena "is related to an ongoing investigation without further clarifications nor specific alleged violations in connection to 'certain illicit payments to Libyan officials,' possibly violating the US Foreign Corruption Practice Act." The company had further received a request at the end of December 2011 for collection of further documentation aimed at integrating the previous subpoena, it said.

"Eni is fully cooperating with the US SEC," it said.

Total also referred to an investigation in similar filing to the US SEC.

"In June 2011, the US SEC issued to certain companies, including, among others, Total, a formal request for information related to their operations in Libya. Total is cooperating with this non-public investigation," the French major said without elaborating further.

The investigation comes at a crucial time for the new Libyan leaders as they try to grapple with a surge in violence in the aftermath of the revolution, which ended in October with Qadhafi's ouster and death. 

It also comes as Libya, an OPEC oil producers and major exporter to Europe, is ramping up its oil production, currently estimated at 1.4 million b/d, just short of a pre-crisis level of 1.7 million b/d.

Source: Platts