Dubai (Platts)--26Feb2013/844 am EST/1344 GMT
The chairman of Libya's National Oil Company and a senior delegation from Spain's Repsol held talks in Tripoli to discuss the company's exploration and production plans in Libya and final preparations needed to resume exploration in the country, NOC reported on its website Tuesday. Repsol is one of the top producers in the OPEC state, accounting for 13% of total production by NOC's foreign joint venture partners. Data released by NOC earlier this month on 2012 oil production by company showed that Repsol's equity share of oil output from its Libyan concessions amounted to 14.07 million barrels of crude oil. Repsol has interests in nine blocks in Libya, of which seven are exploration blocks. The Spanish company made an oil discovery in block NC-115 in January 2011, just before the start of the rebellion against Moammar Qadhafi, which forced Repsol and other foreign operators to shut down all production and halt exploration activity for the duration of the eight-month armed insurrection. Repsol is operator of the El Sharara oil field, located in the same block. The company's two major blocks in Libya, NC-115 and NC-186 in the Murzuq Basin, were producing 360,000 b/d before the crisis and is operated through Akakus Oil Operations, a joint venture with NOC. Article continues below...Sign up to Oilgram News today. Oilgram News brings fast-breaking global petroleum and gas news to your desktop every day. Our extensive global network of correspondents report on supply and demand trends, corporate news, government actions, exploration, technology, and much more.
The chairman of Libya's National Oil Company and a senior delegation from Spain's Repsol held talks in Tripoli to discuss the company's exploration and production plans in Libya and final preparations needed to resume exploration in the country, NOC reported on its website Tuesday. Repsol is one of the top producers in the OPEC state, accounting for 13% of total production by NOC's foreign joint venture partners. Data released by NOC earlier this month on 2012 oil production by company showed that Repsol's equity share of oil output from its Libyan concessions amounted to 14.07 million barrels of crude oil. Repsol has interests in nine blocks in Libya, of which seven are exploration blocks. The Spanish company made an oil discovery in block NC-115 in January 2011, just before the start of the rebellion against Moammar Qadhafi, which forced Repsol and other foreign operators to shut down all production and halt exploration activity for the duration of the eight-month armed insurrection. Repsol is operator of the El Sharara oil field, located in the same block. The company's two major blocks in Libya, NC-115 and NC-186 in the Murzuq Basin, were producing 360,000 b/d before the crisis and is operated through Akakus Oil Operations, a joint venture with NOC.
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Repsol's partners in the concessions are Austria's OMV, France's Total and Norway's Statoil. The company said January 25 that it planned to carry out exploration on a further 6 billion barrels of oil equivalent of possible resources in 2013 and on a further 6 billion boe in 2014. The plans include a resumption of exploration drilling in Libya, where it plans to drill a total of seven wells starting in February. NOC said that earlier this month that it exported a total 379.5 million barrels of crude oil last year, or an average 1.04 million b/d. Local consumption totaled 52.668 million barrels in 2012 or an average 144,296 b/d. NOC did not provide oil production figures for last year but the numbers suggest that its production in 2012 averaged 1.48 million b/d. Libya has put current production at 1.6 million b/d and NOC Chairman Nuri Berruein has said that output is expected to increase to 1.7 million b/d by the end of the first quarter of 2013. It is targeting production of 1.8 million b/d by the end of the year.--Kate Dourian, kate_dourian@platts.com--Edited by Maurice Geller, maurice_geller@platts.com
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