By Jamie Prentis.
Tunis, 5 December 2017:
UK ambassador Peter Millett has suggested to NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla that a conference be held next year in Aberdeen to assess ways in which British and Libyan oil sector companies could cooperate to maintain and improve Libya’s oil production and facilities.
The proposal came during talks between the two in Tripoli today on the potential for collaboration between the countries’ oil sectors. Millett floated the idea in what was a follow-up to last month’s meeting in Tunis of the British Libyan Business Council, addressed by both men and at which the needs of the Libya oil sector were discussed.
NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla is understood to have responded positively to the Aberdeen conference idea.
Millett was accompanied by his deputy Angus McKee, recently appointed after over three years as consul general in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The two also attended a conference in illegal immigration in Tripoli today, along with Presidency Council deputy Ahmed Maetig.
Yesterday, Millett made his first ever visit to Zintan where he saw Mayor Mustafa Baroni and the head of the House of Representatives dialogue committee Abdulsalem Nasia as well as officials and some 20 local sheikhs. The current political process was discussed as was the situation of internally displaced Libyans, in particular the several thousand Zintanis who fled to the town from Tripoli – mainly west Tripoli – in 2014.
Zintan’s plans for reconstruction were also discussed.
Millett’s visit is being seen in terms of building up a new relationship between the mountain town and the UK.
