By Libya Herald reporter.
Malta, 31 August 2015:
The Tripoli-based National Oil Corporation (NOC) . . .[restrict]and the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) have announced that they have held a series of meetings in London between 27-29 August with the major oil companies operating in Libya.
The meetings were held with more than 20 partner, refiner, exporter and service companies including oil giant BP. The CBL reports that the meetings were aimed at consolidating cooperation and assuring Libya’s foreign partners of the Tripoli-based NOC’s commitment to its contractual obligations.
Both the Tripoli-based NOC and the CBL assured the international partners of their political neutrality in the current Libyan political turmoil.
According to the press release put out by the Tripoli-based CBL, the foreign partners assured of their commitment to working with the Tripoli-based NOC.
It will be recalled that as a result of the political split in Libya, there now exists two competing CBLs and two NOCs. The only internationally recognized parliament and government of Libya is the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Thinni based in the eastern city of Al-Beida and the House of Representatives based in the eastern city of Tobruk.
The internationally recognized authorities in the east have been attempting to set up competing institutions in order to wrestle control away from the rebel Tripoli authorities and gain more financial autonomy.
The internationally recognized authorities have set up a competing CBL as well as an NOC. They have set up an alternative bank account overseas to receive hard currency oil revenues, but the international oil companies have chosen to continue to pay for Libya’s oil into existing bank accounts.
The international community meanwhile have adopted a puzzling stance whereby they do not recognize the Tripoli based political authorities but recognize the institutions based there such as the CBL and NOC, regarding them as neutral. [/restrict]
