Malta eyes cheap Libyan oil, after Qatari talks

NTC undersecretary for oil and gas suggests joint meeting for Maltese technical team. 

Tonio Fenech at the recent Libya forum held in Malta.

Matthew Vella

Finance Minister Tonio Fenech has been in discussions with the Libyan undersecretary at the ministry of oil and gas, Umar Shakmak, over Malta's hopes of obtaining assured supplies of Libyan oil and gas products on favourable terms, the English-language Libyan Herald has reported.

Shakmak was quoted in the NTC website suggesting during a joint meeting that a Maltese technical team be appointed to discuss the matter with specialists from the Libya National Oil Corporation.

"The two men are reported to have discussed other aspects of joint cooperation between Libya and Malta and ways of strengthening them," the Libyan Herald reported.

In February, Libya said it would review a request by the Jordanians to assure their oil and petroleum product needs at preferential prices.

Fenech will lead a Malta Enterprise delegation to Libya between April 16 and 19.  It will, however, concentrate on ports and maritime services.

At the end of February, Fench told a business forum on Libya that Malta identified itself strongly with Libya and wanted to play a strong role in its future.

MaltaToday revealed that Tonio Fenech also held meetings in Doha with Qatar's minister for energy and industry Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada.

The meeting - held in the presence of Frank Galea, Malta's newly-appointed ambassador to the Gulf States - was held at the Qatar Petroleum headquarters and was also attended by senior officials of QP and Qatar Petroleum International.

Fenech said that "government acknowledged that the important thing was to find an alternative solution to weathering this temporary spike in oil prices."

He said that government's ultimate priority was to safeguard employment, industry and businesses.

Source: Malta Today 

Full return of Libyan oil to ease global pressure

Libya's oil exports are set to return to full pre-war levels by April this year, beating even the most optimistic estimates and potentially easing a global shortfall of oil caused by outages and conflicts.

Libya plans to export almost 1.4 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) in April, a senior National Oil Corp (NOC) official said. At that level, its exports will exceed deliveries in February 2011 before the uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi began.

The rapid surge in flows, chiefly to importers in the Mediterranean, may ease pressure on global markets caused by conflicts in several oil producing countries as well as the loss of Iranian oil in July when Western sanctions kick in.

European refiners are struggling to cope as these supply problems have pushed Brent crude up by more than 17 percent since the start of the year to a high of $126.05 a barrel on Monday.

In post-war Libya, Italy remains Libya's biggest oil trading partner, accounting for almost a third of its total exports.

But Libya's second-biggest oil export destination for the year is now China, which has accounted for around 17 percent of total exports since the start of the year, NOC data shows. -

Source: Reuters

www.soclibya.com