Libya now politically stable, 'attractive' to foreign oil firms: NOC chairman
Since the ousting of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, Libya’s oil sector has been unstable amid political unrest between two warring factions in the east and the west of the country.
HOUSTON — Libya’s security situation is stable and the North African country is now attractive to investors in oil, the chairman of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) said Tuesday, despite years of unrest between warring factions that have led to split government and dramatic falls in the OPEC member’s output.
What happened: Speaking at the S&P CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, Texas, Masoud Mahmoud said that oil and gas is the only source of government revenue. The NOC oversees almost all oil and gas production and all petroleum activities in Libya.
“In the last two years the government allocated the largest budget for NOC to increase the oil and gas production which led us to increase the production from 1.2 million barrels per day to 1.4 [million] bpd,” Mahmoud said.
At the same conference, Libya’s Oil Minister Khalifa Abdulsadek said Monday that his country is planning to produce 1.6 million bpd of crude a day by the end of the year and plans to reach 2 million bpd “in the next three years or so." OPEC recorded Libya's output at 1.28 million bpd for January.
