Libya’s beseiged government has begun negotiations with Russian and Chinese energy firms on taking over ENI’s projects in Libya after the Italian firm withdrew its staff, a senior Libyan government official told Reuters.
“This withdrawal happened without warning and the Libyan state has started negotiating with big Russian and Chinese oil companies to enter into a partnership in these investments,” the official, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters on Thursday.
ENI withdrew its international staff from Libya earlier this year after violence broke out when thousands of people rebelled against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The firm, along with other international oil companies with investments in Libya, has since establised contacts with anti-Gaddafi rebels based in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.
ENI, present in Libya since the 1950s, is the biggest foreign oil company there, producing 270,000 boed (barrels of oil equivalent per day) in 2010. Its contracts are in force to 2042 for oil production and 2047 for gas though their status after the Libyan conflict may be unclear.
Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni said in May that ENI’s contracts in Libya are international contracts and “if they should be violated the result would be an international dispute that would be particularly serious for a country like Libya that has a lot of money abroad.”
