Libya

Winning bidders include Chevron, Eni, QatarEnergy and Aiteo.

Libya has assigned new oil and gas exploration rights to foreign firms, aiming to revamp the sector after years of civil strife.

The country’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) announced the results of its first licensing round since 2007 on Wednesday. Winners included US oil giant Chevron and Africa’s largest privately-owned energy company, Nigeria’s Aiteo.

Other winning bidders were consortia: Spain’s Repsol with British Petroleum, Eni North Africa with QatarEnergy, and Repsol with Hungary’s MOLGroup and Turkiye Petrolleri.

The licensing awards signal some renewed interest in Libya’s oil sector, which foreign investors had long been wary of after the country erupted into conflict in 2011 with the overthrow of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi. But experts said the response was smaller than expected.

“It is likely that lingering uncertainty over Libya’s political dysfunction and insecurity in the areas around the blocks on offer were factors in the underwhelming response,” Hamish Kinnear, an analyst with UK-based risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, told the AFP news agency.

Libya remains politically divided between rival administrations in the east and west, and disputes over the central ‌bank and oil revenues often disrupt production at key oil fields.

‘Return of trust’

The licensing round, in which five of 20 blocks on offer were awarded, follows a $20bn deal last month with France’s TotalEnergies and ConocoPhillips to boost oil production over 25 years.

Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah, who announced the deal, said the goal was to increase daily oil production by 850,000 barrels within that timeframe. Libya currently produces approximately 1.4 million bpd.

The round used a new, more investor-friendly contract model to replace the rigid terms that previously deterred investment.

NOC chief Masoud Suleman said a committee will be created to further “improve the terms” of the bidding system and negotiate with candidates to grant unallocated blocks.

Speaking at the bid’s announcement ceremony, he said “a return of trust and resuming institutional work in one of the country’s most important sectors after a long period of pause and challenges.”

“They are part of a broader national path that aims for prosperity, growth, the return of normalcy,” he added.

Authorities investigating killing of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, once seen as de-facto PM under father’s iron-fisted rule.

Thousands of people have attended the funeral of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s most prominent son, who was shot dead this week.

The burial took place on Friday in the town of Bani Walid, some 175 kilometres (110 miles) south of Tripoli.

Nearly 15 years after the elder Gaddafi was toppled and killed in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising, thousands of loyalists turned up to mourn his son, who was once seen as the former leader’s heir apparent.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was killed on Tuesday in his home in the northwestern city of Zintan. His office said in a statement that he had been killed during a “direct confrontation” with four unknown gunmen who broke into his home.

The office of Libya’s attorney general said investigators and forensic doctors examined the 53-year-old’s body and determined that he died from gunshot wounds and that the office was working to identify suspects.

“We are here to accompany our beloved one, the son of our leader in whom we placed our hope and our future,” said Waad Ibrahim, a 33-year-old woman from Sirte, nearly 300km (186 miles) away from Bani Walid.

Divided country

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was once described as the de facto prime minister under his father’s iron-fisted 40-year rule, cultivating an image of moderation and reform despite holding no official position.

Championing himself as a reformer, he led talks on Libya abandoning its weapons of mass destruction and negotiated compensation for the families of those killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

But that reputation soon collapsed when he promised “rivers of blood” in response to the 2011 uprising, which led to his arrest that year on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity.

In 2021, he announced he would run for president, but the elections aiming to unify the divided country under a United Nations agreement were indefinitely postponed.

Today, Libya remains split between Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s UN-backed government based in Tripoli and an eastern administration backed by Khalifa Haftar.

The killing of Gaddafi, seen by many as an alternative to the country’s power duopoly, occurred less than a week after a reported January 28 meeting in France’s Elysee Palace, which brought together Haftar’s son and advisers to Dbeibah.

Email sent to US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2011 outlines what the sender described as financial and legal opportunities in Libya.

A newly released document shows that an associate of late US financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had outlined plans to pursue access to Libya’s frozen state assets, including seeking potential support from former British and Israeli intelligence officials.

The tranche of documents released by the United States Department of Justice on Friday included an email sent to Epstein that outlines what the sender described as financial and legal opportunities linked to political and economic uncertainty in Libya at the time.

The email dated July 2011 was sent several months after a NATO-backed uprising against then Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi began. Gaddafi was killed by Libyan rebels in October of the same year.

According to the email, about $80bn in Libyan funds were believed to be frozen internationally, including roughly $32.4bn in the US.

“And it is estimated that the real number is somewhere between three to four times this number in sovereign, stolen and misappropriated assets,” the email states, adding that “if we can identify/recover 5 percent to 10 percent of these monies and receive 10 percent to 25 percent as compensation we are talking about billions of dollars”.

The sender also said certain former members of Britain’s foreign intelligence service, MI6 and Israel’s external intelligence agency, Mossad, had expressed a willingness to assist in efforts to identify and recover “stolen assets”.

The email also referenced expectations that Libya would need to spend at least $100bn in the future on reconstruction and economic recovery.

“But the real carrot is if we can become their go-to guys because they plan to spend at least $100 billion next year to rebuild their country and jump start the economy,” the email said.

The email characterised Libya as a country with significant energy reserves and strong literacy rates, factors it said could be advantageous for financial and legal initiatives.

It also stated that discussions had been held with some international law firms about working on a contingency-fee basis.