London (Platts)--11Mar2011/750 am EST/1250 GMT
The EU is already discussing possible sanctions on Libyan oil companies, an EU source said Friday after the EU's Hungarian presidency said additional future sanctions could include freezing the assets of Libya's oil and gas producing and exporting companies. Earlier Friday, Hungarian foreign minister Janos Martonyi said in a radio interview that the EU could target the assets of Libya's oil companies. "It cannot be ruled out that, depending on further developments -- which do not seem too favorable at the moment, additional sanctions may be imposed," Martonyi said. "If necessary, these may include freezing the assets of companies involved in oil and natural gas production and exports." A spokesman for Hungary's EU representation in Brussels would say only that there was discussion of further entities being placed on the sanctions list, declining to say whether these included Libyan oil companies. The EU on Thursday added Mustafa Zarti, deputy chief executive of the Libyan Investment Authority, board member of the National Oil Corporation and head of Libya's overseas retail arm Tamoil, to its list of people and entities subject to existing sanctions. It also added the Libyan Investment Authority and four other entities, including the Central Bank of Libya, saying these were "under [the] control of Moammar Qadhafi and his family, and [a] potential source of funding for his regime." Austria's central bank had already frozen Zarti's assets. AFP reported on March 4 that Zarti, who has Austrian citizenship, left Tripoli for Vienna on February 21.--Margaret McQuaile, margaret_mcquaile@platts.comSimilar stories appear in Oilgram News. See more information at http://bit.ly/OilgramNews