Libya is offering production sharing agreements to the successful bidders in its first oil and gas exploration bid round in 18 years, top officials announced at an event in London on Monday.
The bid round includes 22 blocks available for exploration and development—11 offshore and 11 onshore. These blocks also include areas with undeveloped oil discoveries.
The last such bid round was held in 2007, four years before the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, which triggered a prolonged civil war. This conflict caused various factions and tribal groups to compete for control over important institutions and major oilfields, severely affecting the country’s oil production. Libya was eventually exempted from OPEC+ production quotas due to these disruptions.
Now, Libya is seeking to increase its oil output and attract foreign investments as the country enters a period of relative stability.
The new bid round has already attracted significant interest from international oil companies, said Masoud Suleman, chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), in an interview with Reuters.
Currently, Libya’s crude oil production exceeds 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd), according to the NOC. The corporation aims to raise this figure to 2 million barrels per day within the next three years, although this goal depends on securing adequate funding.
Major foreign oil companies are also beginning to return to Libya. BP and Eni, for example, resumed operations in the country last year after a decade-long absence due to the civil war.
According to an NOC statement, Italy’s Eni began exploratory drilling in the Ghadames Basin in October. The company is working alongside BP and the Libyan Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, on the exploration block where the drilling is taking place.
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