“It is a national commitment to pay attention to the private sector. We are an oil producer, but the added value of this [for Libya] is very limited. The more that private sector participation and investment in the oil sector increases, so the added value will increase.”
This was a key point of the National Oil Corporation (NOC) chairman Farhat Bengdara’s opening speech at a conference in Tunis on 23 November 2024 bringing together the NOC and its affiliates with executives from some 140 Libyan private oil service companies or companies planning to develop oil and gas operations businesses.
“The aim of this gathering and what we are seeking beyond it, is to know the ways and the proper paths to increase the participation of the private sector in Libya.” he continued.
The Tunis gathering was just one a number of meetings organised the NOC or by others but with its support designed as first steps in radically transforming Libyan energy production, from a wholly state controlled industry into a state- sector/private-sector partnership in which the private sector becomes directly involved in exploration and production of oil and gas.
The Tunis event was quickly followed by the 5th Libya Energy Week in Cairo on 3-5 December, organised by IN-VR but also fully endorsed by the NOC. Bengdara and almost all of its top leadership attended as did both a swathe of Libyan private-sector companies hoping to take on a new role in the business, as well internationals hoping to hear more about the planned new round of concessions.
Another part of the NOC’s espousal of the private sector, is the upcoming Libya Energy & Economic Summit in Tripoli, on 18-19 January. Again, while organised by another company, Energy Capital & Power, it is enthusiastically supported by the NOC as a vehicle to showcase its expansion plans and present the NOC as a prospective partner with the Libyan private sector, and seek investment from them as well as from the multinationals.
In Tunis, the NOC said it believed it had indeed laid the foundations for a promising partnership with the private sector.
“We are looking forward to understanding the challenges facing the private companies and how the NOC can help them enhance their positions and business with it,” said Bengdara.
He made it clear that it was a cause for regret that despite oil production starting in the 1960s, with a very few exceptions over the years, no Libyan private production companies had built up the expertise to invest and work in the oil and gas sector.
However, as noted, the Tunis event was simply a first formal step in seeing how the NOC can draw the private sector, and private sector investment, into the oil and gas ndustry and grow it. As such, it was a dialogue between private oil/gas service companies and the NOC, with Bengdara saying that the NOC would adopt the recommendations that emerged from the event.
Among these was a call for an energy bank to provide loans to private companies for business creation in the oil and gas industry. The idea appears to have gained traction with the NOC.
It was also agreed to appoint three representatives from the private sector, one each from south, east and west of Libya, to discuss private sector involvement in the oil industry with the NOC, to make proposals on this and help implement them.
In Cairo, a week and a half later, in the NOC’s search for reliable partners in the development of the Libyan oil and gas industry, Bengdara’s appeal was to a wider audience: the multinationals as well as the Libyan private sector.
Indeed, while in the Egyptian capital, he had talks with leading figures from several major international oil companies, including Eni, TotalEnergies, Repsol and ConocoPhillips. In fact, there were representatives from some 28 of the largest oil companies and organisations worldwide at the Cairo event. Bengdara’s statement that Libya still has vast untapped reserves of oil and gas, and that 70 percent of the country remained to be explored was clearly designed to arouse their interest. But his call was to more than the internationals.
At the earlier Italy-Libya Economic Forum in Tripoli at the end of October, the GNU’s acting oil minister Khalifa Abdul-Sadek, said that the new exploration and drilling concessions that would soon be offered would be classified according to the scale of exploration and production, and new licences awarded accordingly. Major concessions would be awarded to major existing national or international exploration and production companies. However, the development of brownfield sites and marginal and smaller fields would generally go to local Libyan companies, providing they were in joint ventures with experienced international operators.
Bringing in the private sector is going to fundamentally change the Libyan oil and gas industry. Moreover, giving private companies small sites is probably just the first step in what is likely in the next few years to become a bigger move towards privatisation
