Fierce competition in scramble for Libya’s black gold

After 20 years of isolation, Libya has become the destination of choice for hungry oil companies ready to cut any kind of deal to get a piece of the north African state’s oil riches.

“It’s a race for our black gold,” president of the National Oil Company Shukri Ghanem told AFP. “We are organising it like the Olympic Games and may the best one win.”

With each subsequent round of concessions, companies from all over the world have been undercutting each other’s bids to the barest limits of profitability.

With the end of UN sanctions after Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi dramatic decision in December 2003 to abandon weapons of mass destruction programmes, oil exploration has picked up from its long hiatus at a frenetic pace.

Turkish Press