Reuters reported that Libya has enough companies exploring for oil and will not hold any licensing rounds for at least a year as it waits for demand prospects to improve, the OPEC member's top oil official said on Thursday.
"Our effort now is to develop what we have, rather than trying to find more new oil," Shokri Ghanem told Reuters after a meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Doha.
Asked when a new round may be held, he said: "Not before one year. When you see the demand in the world is enough to absorb the available or excess capacity, then we will move".
After years of diplomatic isolation, Libya has opened up Africa's biggest proven oil reserves to dozens of foreign energy firms in a series of hotly-contested exploration rounds.
Those companies accepted tight revenue shares and an unpredictable, opaque operating environment for access to some of the world's most promising acreage.
Lower oil prices have made for a rockier ride this year for the foreign companies investing billions of dollars in Libya. Major firms operating there include BP, ENI and ExxonMobil.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi briefly raised the idea of oil sector nationalisation, and a dispute with Canadian oil firm Verenex ended with shareholders forced to sell the company to Libya.
The western-friendly Ghanem stepped down for a few weeks and his authority was challenged by a new Supreme Council for Energy Affairs (SCEA).
In another measure that rattled international energy firms, a government directive appeared stating that foreign joint ventures must have a Libyan national as chief executive.
Ghanem, chairman of Libya's state National Oil Corporation (NOC) since 2006, moved to reassure foreign oil firms on Thursday.
"Foreign companies working in Libya, especially in exploration, they will not be compelled to have a Libyan CEO. The oil industry is in a special situation. This is more about other sectors."
Neither existing nor new joint ventures in the oil industry would be affected, he said.
"It is of course a hope, an aim, that we see some Libyans being the CEOs of companies in Libya but of course we appreciate in the meantime the special nature of the oil companies."
OIL POLICY
Ghanem said NOC was still in charge of oil policy, playing down the role of the SCEA which is dominated by conservatives close to Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi.
"It is the NOC that is now responsible for the policy and the practices of the oil industry in Libya," he said.
Asked if decisions were approved by the SCEA, Ghanem said: "No, by the cabinet. Otherwise it is the NOC which oversees the activities of the companies which suggest to them proposals."
The creation of the SCEA led to speculation that Libya's powerful old guard was trying to undermine the authority of Ghanem, who foreign investors see as a sympathetic partner.
Investors were also worried that if the council took an active role in decision making it could further slow the pace of energy project approvals.
Sluggish bureaucracy aside, the drop in oil prices has led Libya and other OPEC members to look again at some investments to boost oil production.
Ghanem said on Saturday that Libya would not meet a 2012 oil output capacity target of 3 million barrels per day.
When oil prices peaked, national oil companies decided it was worth producing more and many new investment projects were studied, Ghanem said on Thursday.
"But then there were cost increases and oil prices went down," he said. "There is also a glut in capacity ... so it became non-economical to pursue so many expansions."
