Dr. Shokri Ghanem has held two separate meetings with officials from Occidental Petroleum Corporation and British Petroleum BP. In his meeting with Dr. Ray Irani, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Occidental, both sides discussed the return of Occidental to Libyan market and resumption of its operations here, in addition to programmes and plans to be executed in Libya.
Dr. Shokri also met in his office in Tripoli with Tony Hayward, BP chief executive, Exploration and Production where they reviewed some problem facing oil production in Libya. Tony said that BP is looking for a full partnership with Libya’s National Oil Company NOC, and it is ready to offer the latest technologies in oil field. Dr. Shokri called for acceleration of negotiations between NOC and BP. He Called BP to invest in Libya’s TAMOIL by offering 60% of the company’s shares.
Meanwhile, the world's biggest energy companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Plc and Chevron Corp, are among the 62 corporations that may bid in Libya's second auction of oil drilling-rights next month. NOC said 12 companies from the United States have asked for bidding packages. Nineteen from Europe, 16 from Asia, five from the former Soviet Union, four from Canada, four from Australia, one from South America and one from Africa also requested packages. Libya will auction permits on Oct. 2 to search for oil and gas in 26 areas, covering about 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles), nearly the size of the island of Cuba.
The list of likely bidders, obtained from National Oil in Tripoli, includes U.S. companies ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum Corp, Marathon Oil Corp., Amerada Hess, Unocal Corp., Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Kerr-McGee Corp, and Vintage Petroleum Inc. Occidental, Chevron and Hess won 11 of the 15 permits auctioned in January, in the first bidding round since oil was discovered in Libya in 1959.
Until then, the nation awarded blocks after talks with companies. Western European companies BP, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SA, Eni Spa, Statoil ASA, Norsk Hydro ASA, Repsol YPF SA, RWE-DEA AG, BG Group Plc, Gaz de France, Wintershall AG, OMV AG and AP Moller-Maersk A/S were among the likely bidders.
No company from Europe won a permit in Libya's first bid round. Other possible bidders are Canada's Petro-Canada, Talisman Energy Inc., Nexen Inc. and Verenex Energy Inc., Australia's BHP Billiton Ltd., Woodside Petroleum Ltd. and Oil Search Ltd, Russia's OAO Gazprom, OAO Lukoil, OAO Tatneft and Itera Holding Ltd, and Ukraine's NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy. India's and China's largest oil companies, Oil and Natural Gas Corp. and China National Petroleum Corp., were among 16 Asian companies on the list, along with Malaysia's and Indonesia's state- oil groups, Petroliam Nasional Bhd and PT Pertamina respectively. Asian bidders also include Japan's two biggest oil explorers, Inpex Corp. and Japan Petroleum Exploration Corp.; its largest oil refiner, Nippon Oil Corp.; its second-biggest trading company, Mitsui & Co.; its biggest producer of natural gas from local fields, Teikoku Oil Ltd.; and its fourth-largest trading company, Itochu Corp. Algeria's state-owned group Sonatrach is the only company from Africa. Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA may bid from South America.
Source: Jana
