Libya Awards Oil Deals to Exxon, BP, Others

Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Gas and Eni of Italy were among several companies that won oil exploration rights in Libya, officials said Sunday.

Libya said 120 foreign oil companies had submitted offers for the second round of bidding for certain oil and gas exploration and production contracts in the country.

Nineteen of the plots offered were in areas already producing oil such as Sirte, in the center of the country; Ghadames, in the west; and Murzuq, in the southwest. The others are in Cyrenaica and Kufra, in the east.

The winning companies were announced by an official from Libya’s National Oil Corp. He said Exxon had won one contract for exploration in the center of the country along with Japanese giant Nippon Oil Corp. and PT Pertamina of Indonesia. British Petroleum won two contracts in Sirte along with PT Pertamina and India’s Oil India, and Eni and British Petroleum won the two contracts in the Kufra fields.

Companies from France, Norway and Russia won contracts in the Murzuq fields in the west.

Libya is offering contracts with National Oil, the state-owned integrated oil company that controls the country’s petroleum industry.

Libya has proven reserves of 29.5 billion barrels of oil, the country’s main source of revenue.

U.S. giant Occidental Petroleum Corp., which has submitted several offers, announced in late July that it had become the first U.S. oil company to resume production in Libya since the United States imposed economic sanctions nearly two decades ago.