Reuters reported that Libya could proceed with a new round of oil exploration and production agreements in the current transitional period but the priority for now is to maintain pre war output levels and future targets.
Mr Abdelbari al-Arusi OPEC member's new oil minister said that “The North African country has lifted oil output faster than analysts had expected to around 1.5 barrels per day to 1.6 million barrels per day after last year's war which ousted Muammar Gaddafi.”
Mr Arusi said that "Our priority is to maintain the production at 1.5 million barrels per day. We now have our target to increase production 100,000 barrels per day for the coming few months and then we're planning to drill more wells to increase our production rate."
Libya's National Oil Corporation aims to boost oil output to 1.72 million bpd by end March but has warned of the risk that strikes could interrupt production. The new minister reiterated Libya's target of increasing output to 2 million barrels per day by 2015.
Mr Arusi who is from the western town of Zawiyah took office a few weeks ago to replace Mr Abdulrahman Ben Yazza as minister in an interim government in place until a new round of elections which will follow the drafting of a constitution next year.
He said that our period here will only be 15 months and we're going to work on both sides short term and long term plans. Libya would review its last round of Exploration and Production Sharing Agreements and come up with the right solution for new negotiations in the future.
Until late 2004, Libya's unexplored territory had been off limits for decades because of sanctions. In the last bidding round after that land opened up and a scramble for acreage ensued companies accepted some of the industry's tightest exploration and production deals.
Mr Arusi said that "This EPSA IV the last round will be reviewed for the interest of the Libyans and for our partners. A lot of companies have complained about this EPSA IV we don't like people to lose, because this is a win-win business.”
