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Libya is currently pumping nearly 1.5 million b/d of crude
and expects to achieve "normal" pre-war production levels of 1.6
million b/d by mid-2012, Abdulbaset Abadi, a member of the oil committee at the
National Transitional Council, said Wednesday.
Speaking at the MEED Libya Focus Day in Dubai,
he said Libya was seeking foreign assistance to raise the country's oil
production capacity to 2.2 million b/d in 2015 and 3 million b/d in 2020. The
country's current production capacity is estimated at about 1.6 million b/d.
International oil companies with production
sharing contracts signed with the regime of the late Libyan dictator Qadhafi
that are due to expire in 2012 will get contract extensions on account of
Libya's 2011 revolution, Abadi said.
Libya plans to announce the structure of new
enhanced production sharing agreements to replace the Qadhafi-era contracts in
2015, he said.
Separately, NTC deputy chairman Mustafa el-Huni said
Wednesday at the same event that Libya's 2012 budget assumes crude oil
production of 1.5 million b/d and exports of 1.3 million b/d.
The national budget of Libyan Dinar 68 billion
($54.38 billion) for the 2012 calendar year, approved in February, is also
based on projected natural gas output of 16 billion cubic meters this year, he
told delegates.
The budget includes Dinar 38 million earmarked
for development spending, including investment in civil and petroleum sector
infrastructure, Huni said.
The NTC projects government revenues from the
petroleum sector of about $45 million in 2012. The remainder of the budget will
be funded from Libyan assets that were frozen in overseas accounts during the
country's 2011 revolution, he said.
Huni reaffirmed Libya's intention to honour all
agreements with foreign investors signed by the Qadhafi regime.
"We have no intention to nationalize or do
something radical," he said.
"Libya is in essence a moderate country
that will look at implementing moderate policies." Elections for a
National Congress to replace the NTC are scheduled for June. The 85 members of
the NTC have pledged not to run for office in order to minimize the
transitional government's influence on the election, Huni said.
Abadi said in his presentation that a number of
new oil and gas discoveries in Libya in 2009 and 2010, including 24 reported in
2010, had raised the country's proven and probable reserves to an estimated 45
billion barrels of crude oil and 55 Tcf of gas.
US Geological Survey data put the potential for
further Libyan oil discoveries at more than 8 billion barrels, including 4.7
billion barrels of conventional onshore crude, while undiscovered gas potential
was put at more than 43 Tcf, Abadi said.
He presented an encouraging picture of the
current state of Libya's oil export facilities: while the terminal at the port
of Sidra had been destroyed by pro-Qadhafi forces, there were no significant
operational problems at Brega, Marsa or Tobruk, and only minor damage at Ras
Lanuf.
The Libyan petroleum sector's major immediate
requirements were the replacement of numerous 4X4 vehicles destroyed in the
recent conflict, telephone and Internet services at oil and gas facilities,
security services to protect expatriate workers and workforce housing, Abadi
said.
The biggest short-term bottleneck was likely to
be communications infrastructure, which would take some time to extend to
remote oil and gas facilities, he said.
Source: Platts by Tamsin Carlisle, and edited by Jonathan Fox
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