By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 20 September 2013:
Speaking on the second and final day of the CWC Libya Forum on oil and gas in . . .[restrict]held in Tripoli (17-18 September), the Italian, Korean, British, US and Spanish ambassadors participated in a special ambassadorial session under the banner “attracting new entrants to Libya’s hydrocarbon sector”.
Libya needs to maximize its hydrocarbon value, Bashir Garea the NOC Exploration Manager chairing the session said, in setting the framework for the session. It needs to attract international technology and know-how to be able to extract the best value out of its sector.
US Ambassador Deborah Jones said that “oil is the world’s blood. In the developed states we are concerned and talk about oil constantly. For Libya oil is a matter of existence. Oil discovery and production is never without risk”.
Regarding attracting new entrants to the Libyan hydrocarbon market, Jones said that “US SMEs need a one-stop-shop and an efficient system. They don’t have the assets that the large companies have to get plugged in”. She added that US companies often complain that the Libyan system is neither transparent nor efficient.
Korea spent US$ 160 billion per year on importing hydrocarbons which made it the seventh largest importer in the world, revealed Korean Ambassador Lee Jong-Kook.
He declared that Korean companies were interested in participating in upstream projects in Libya, but that, regrettably in Libya, Korean companies had only one minor stake in the Elephant (Feel) field.
The new EPSA 4 development promised by the NOC in mid-2014 is welcomed by Korean companies who were keen to see its specifications. The Korean ambassador felt that the new EPSA was linked to the new constitutional and political building process of Libya.
For British companies, there are four things that are of importance in the Libyan oil sector, explained British Ambassador Michael Aron. These were transparency, decisiveness, flexibility and stability.
First British companies want transparency in the Libyan oil and gas sector and to this end he hoped that Libya would start to publish its oil sales online on a regular and systematic bases.
The ambassador also hoped that Libya would join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which amongst other things encourages NOC’s to publish their contracts with IOC’s thereby disclosing the details of profit sharing.
The British ambassador said that this would show all of Libya’s population a clear flow of where their oil money was going.
With regards to decisiveness, the ambassador said that British companies wanted quicker decisions and wanted those agreed upon decisions stuck to and implemented by both the government and NOC.
The ambassador said that with regards to flexibility, companies wanted a win-win formula and wanted to look at ways to better exploit Libya’s older oilfields.
On the issue of stability, the British ambassador said that Libya’s allies have made it clear in an earlier joint declaration that they attach great importance to stability and that they regarded Libya’s oil as belonging to all the Libyan people.
The allies were also committed to supporting the Libyan government and the GNC to solve Libya’s oil strikes peacefully. The ambassador said that Libya’s allies stood by Libya’s legitimate government and a united Libya.
Furthermore, the British ambassador revealed that when British Prime Minister David Cameron met Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan in London on Tuesday, he announced 60 million pounds to spend in the area of security, justice and defence for capacity building, including training and help in establishing a judiciary.
Italian ambassador Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi said that the fact that such an oil and gas conference can take part in Libya currently is important as it shows the reality of Libya, which is that despite the difficulties life and business goes on.
Italy is very optimistic regarding Libya’s future and its oil sector. We have a large sector here based on a win-win formula. We must think about social responsibility, he added.
The ambassador understood the link between the visa process and the human resource development and training of Libyans in the hydrocarbon sector.
With regards to training and human resource development, the Italian ambassador said that he hoped Italy would be the first country to start training 6,000 Libyan soldiers in Italy in October.
“After revolutions, history teaches us that things move slowly. Even in Italy, after the fascist dictatorship at the end of World War Two things were difficult, but with national dialogue and reconciliation Italy came out of it. It will take time”, the mbassador added.
“Libya’s stability is part of our stability and that of the Mediterranean”, concluded the Italian ambassador.
The new petroleum law should take into account medium and small-sized companies, including service providers so as to widen participation in the Libyan oil and gas sector, said the Spanish ambassador Jose Riera Siquier. Rebuilding the infrastructure is important, he added, but the environment must also be taken into consideration in the new regulation.
Regarding the security situation, those of us who have been here two years or more can see how security has definitely improved little by little.
We are committed to the constitutional process. Governance is about the fair redistribution of government wealth, therefore it is only natural that there is debate over this especially since it is the sole source of national income, he concluded. [/restrict]
