Libya: European Oil Companies Assist With Redevelopment

Executives from Spain's Repsol energy company are meeting in Libya with oil officials to map out plans for bringing the war-torn nation's petroleum industry back online after being shut down during the civil war.

Kristian Rix a key spokesperson at Repsol said the meetings with Libya's National Oil Corporation were taking place in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi began six months ago.
The talks are aimed at determining how to ensure a "return to normality of the Libyan oil industry," Rix said, without providing further details. Repsol YPF SA is also "evaluating the condition of our assets and the infrastructure to get a better estimation for when we can return to resumption of activities," Rix said.

A Libyan official said last week that at least five foreign oil and gas companies are back in Libya to work on resuscitating production. Italy's Eni SpA, the largest foreign producer in the country, was confirmed to be one of them and expects gas exports to resume in October. A spokesman for France's Total SA energy company,  declined comment on whether it was participating in the Benghazi talks. "We're evaluating to see when we could restart" Libyan operations, said Total spokeswoman Phenelope Semavoine.

Eni last week signed a memorandum with Libya's rebels to restart a key natural gas pipeline and provide technical assessment of the country's oil infrastructure. Repsol believes it will be possible to restart its Libyan oil production operations about four weeks after workers are sent back to the country, but bringing production up to full capacity will take longer.

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