By Moutaz Ali.

Tripoli, 8 May 2017:
Germany engineering company Ferrostaal and the Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO) are looking at ways of increasing the latter’s production. The managing director of Ferrostaal Industrieanlagen Libya, Marc Neumann, was in Benghazi last week for talks with AGOCO chairman Mohamed Ben Shatwan on the subject.
“The purpose of the visit was to check the workflow in the oil fields and discuss the enhancement of the two companies’ mutual cooperation, including new contracts,” AGOCO spokesman Omran Al-Zawi has told the Libya Herald.
For his part, Neumann explained that discussions during the trip to Benghazi, his second this year, focussed on enabling AGOCO to move ahead and activate a number of projects previously approved but prevented from taking place because of the security situation.
Security in the east of the country was much better now, he said. As a result, Ferrostall had already reactivated its presence there.
The company, which has provided engineering, procurement and construction (“EPC”) services to the oil industry throughout Libya, pulled many of its staff out of the country in 2014. Just over a year ago, one of its engineers was briefly abducted at AGOCO’s Messla oilfield.
At present, because of security concerns, Ferrostaal is not thought to be looking to return to western Libya.