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British supermajor has said that it is entering the final stages of preparations for drilling on a major US$1.2 billion exploration block in Libya.
A senior spokesman from BP, Robert Wine, said that the seismic underground tests are almost complete at the site in the Sirte basin in northern Libya.
“We are coming to the end of the offshore seismic work, and then there is more ongoing seismic work on shore,” is quoted by The Media Line as saying.
“We will then analyse the seismic [result] and work out the prospects for the first well to be drilled, that will be sometime next year.”
“The agreement we signed back in 2007 was an exploration commitment of $900 million, although we said at the time that it would probably be slightly more around $1.2 billion,” he added.
Wine also said that BP is confident that the site can be developed into a major oil producer for the company and that the investment could rise to $20 billion over the next 20 years. .
The BP deal in Libya has been attracting controversy in the UK after the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi, on compassionate grounds from a Scottish prison was linked to the contract.
However, any link has been strongly denied by BP and both the UK and Libyan government.
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