Big U.S. oil: Tepid on Libya

The country, thought to hold huge quantities of natural gas, is once again taking bids. But there’s no interest from U.S. firms so far.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Libya is once again turning on the spigot.

In August, the country announced yet another round of bidding for energy contracts – this time for 41 offshore sectors that could hold natural gas worth billions of dollars.
But while oil companies from Canada, Norway, Britain, Thailand, Japan, India, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates have expressed interest, no U.S. company has entered a bid in the latest round of bidding, according to a report in the Oil and Gas Journal (OJG), a trade publication.

Bidding from U.S. companies is not out of the question, though, as they have submitted bids and won contracts in previous rounds, according to oil industry analysts.

A spokesman for Occidental Petroleum said the big U.S. oil producer has not bid in the latest round but has won contracts in Libya before. A spokesman for ExxonMobil said the company had been awarded contracts in the past, but wouldn’t say if the company would submit a bid during this round.

Officials at Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Hess and Marathon Oil were not immediately available for comment.

The prize at stake is not trivial.

U.N. sanctions in place since 1992 had prevented most Western oil firms from operating in Libya after agents from the country’s intelligence service were implicated in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270. The sanctions have left most of the country’s natural gas reserves, along with a lot of its oil, fairly undeveloped.

CNN Money