By Hadi Fornaji.
Tunis, 23 June 2017:
As part of the National Oil Corporation’s plans to increase production, agreement has been reached in principle with Austria’s OMV to invest in further development of the Nafoura field in the Sirte Basin in the east of the country, near Jalu. At a meeting on Wednesday in Tripoli between NOC officials led by chairman Mustafa Sanalla and the heads of OMV’s Middle East and Libya management, the Austrians also agreed to provide technical assistance in increasing production for both the Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO) and Zueitina Oil, its Libyan partners on the ground.
The two sides also assessed the current various production issues, including problems over the electricity supply, as well as studies needing to be undertaken ahead of increasing production.
It was also agreed to hold a workshop with Zueitina Oil on business development.
OMV partners with AGOCO at Nafoura which, with an estimated 7.5 billion barrels of oil, makes it one of Libya’s prime oil fields. In January, the Austrian producer bought out the seven-percent stake in the field held by its partner Occidental Oil. Production had restarted after the reopening of Zueitina oil terminal in September and prior to the terminal’s closure in November 2015, it was producing 20,000 b/d. Before the revolution, production was much higher.
At the time OMV bought the stake in Nafoura, it also acquired Occidental’s stakes in the nearby C102 and C103 fields operated in partnership with Zueitina and in Block NC29/74, south of Sidra, again partnered with Zueitina, making it the sole foreign company in all the fields.
OMV is also a junior stakeholder with France’s TOTAL and Norway’s Statoil alongside Spain’s Repsol in Akakus Oil which operates concessions NC115 and NC186 in the Murzuq basin – the Sharara oilfield.
Sanalla visited the Sharara field earlier this week to look into staff working conditions and the state of security there.
Sanalla’s drive to rebuild Libyan production has seen it climb to some 885,000 barrels a day – well on target for the one million target he has set for the end of July. The downside, for Libya included, is that this has helped depress international oil prices, which are now at their lowest since last year.
