With little prospect of world crude prices falling much below current lofty levels, oil companies are expected to be out in full force in Libya's next oil and gas licensing round on 2nd October 2005, an increasingly rare opportunity for foreign oil companies to explore and produce oil from an OPEC member nation.
Oil industry experts and lawyers acting on behalf of companies interesting in bidding on the production sharing rights of some of the 26 blocks on offer say most of the major oil companies are keen to get a foothold in the former political pariah that is also one of the world's most under-explored energy-rich countries.
"There are some good blocks on offer this round, and some bad. The question is whether you have deemed Libya as a market you want to enter or not," said attorney Reema Ali of Ali & Partners, a Washington-based law firm with offices in Tripoli and throughout the Middle East.
"If it is, then you want to be in as early as possible and establish relationships and get to know things better than you would from the outside. Given the expectation for high oil prices and fact that most other Mideast oil producers ban outsiders from oil production, there is a lot of interest in Libya," she added.
Libya is drawing widespread interest in its energy sector from foreign investors, says Tarek Hassan-Beck, director of planning at Libya's National Oil Corp (NOI.YY). "When the business environment changed, we actually had a stampede," Hassan-Beck said.
Libya expects international oil companies to spend more than $7 billion on exploration activity over the next 10 years, Hassan-Beck said. The country aims to find at least another 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent through ongoing exploration adding to its nearly 40 billion barrels of proven reserves.
Around 63 oil companies have prequalified for the bidding on the 44 oil blocks that will be awarded in 26 different contracts Sunday, Libyan officials say. Most of the U.S. and European oil majors as well as national oil companies from major consuming nations India and China are on the list.
In January 2005, when Libya staged its first exploration and production-sharing agreement auction since 2000 and the first to include U.S. companies in more than two decades, some 60 companies, including most U.S. oil majors and many smaller independents, submitted bids.
Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY), ChevronTexaco Corp. (CVX), and Amerada Hess Corp. (AHC) won interests in 11 of the 15 permits awarded in the first round. But it was Occidental that came away with the most, taking a share in nine exploration areas.
Onlookers said they were stunned by the hefty signing bonuses Occidental and its partners Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (WPL.AU) of Australia and the UAE's Liwa Energy were prepared to pay - nearly $123 million of the total $132 million in signing bonuses offered by the winning bidders. Occidental bid for all 15 areas on offer.
But a few months later, Occidental became the first U.S. oil company to resume production in Libya on fields it controlled before the U.S. government slapped sanctions on Libya in 1986.
Negotiations continue between Libyan oil officials and executives from the so-called Oasis Group - comprising Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO), Amerada Hess and ConocoPhillips (COP) - about the group's return to its Waha oil concession.
Industry sources say the U.S. companies had a tough time deciding how to bid in the January round after so many years outside. European companies that had been active in Libya during the Americans' absence put in bids that were well below the winners.
"The first round bids were very favorable to Libya and very aggressive," said Nabil Khodadad, London-based partner at Chadbourne & Parke. "People were waiting to get a sense of where the market was. The fact that U.S. companies had been excluded for so long really gave them a big incentive to big aggressively." But with oil prices now a whopping $20 a barrel higher than where they were at the time of first round, the winning bids now look relatively cheap, he said.
"Oil is over $60 a barrel, so it would not surprise me to see some aggressive bidding this time," Khodadad said. "There is a perception in the market that oil prices are going to remain high for some time. There was less of that perception at the beginning of this year."
Libya hopes its foreign partners and their investment dollars will help boost the country's oil production capacity to 3 million barrels a day by the end of the decade. Years of sanctions and underinvestment have pushed Libyan production down to about 1.7 million, about half its 1970 peak of 3.3 million barrels a day.
As in the first round, the companies chosen Sunday as winners by Libya's National Oil Corp. (NOC) will be those that seek the smallest share of production. Most of the winning bidders in January asked for shares of less than 20%, lower than what most bigger companies need to satisfy shareholders, who expect a higher rate of return on investment.
This round will give more weight to signing bonuses and pledged investment levels. The NOC has assigned a minimum signing bonus to avoid a situation that occurred in January's round, when India Oil Corp. and Oil India were awarded an area though they pledged no signing bonus.
Analysts say the signing bonus - which was originally intended to serve as a tie-breaker - could come into play in this round. There is less acreage on offer, so bids will probably be tighter for the most attractive blocks. In January's round, there were no ties for any of the blocks.
Source: Dow Jones
