By Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 19 October 2013:
With five million people and two million barrels of oil a day production, all Libyans will . . .[restrict]be wealthy and without problems, provided they exploit what they have, said Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni.
The boss of the Italian oil firm, which is an equal partner with the NOC in Mellitah Oil, said in an interview with US business channel CNBC, that these advantages meant that Libya could be “a paradise”.
He admitted that in the light of recent oil supply interruptions, “it might take, many months, maybe years” to achieve consistency in oil production.
Scaroni bemoaned Qaddafi’s destruction of all institutions. “At the end of the Revolution, the Libyans found themselves with no institutions whatsoever, unlike every other country in the region – Tunisia has very strong unions, Egypt a very strong army, Algeria, both army and unions, so Libya has nothing. Now to move from nothing to a solid, institutional state will take a long time”.
He said that he visited Libya frequently and took the proper security precautions. However he added: “But let me say that in my view, Libyans are the most pacific people in the world. Because in a country where every family has at least one weapon, no police and no army, the situation is typically calm. But imagine any other country in a similar situation…”
Scaroni also said that he did not believe that Libyans would miss the opportunity to become “the new Abu Dhabi or the new Qatar or the new Kuwait of the world”.
[/restrict]
