afrol News, 24 June - Libya state owned Oil Company has sealed a 30 year agreement with US based Occidental Petroleum Corporation to upgrade the country’s existing petroleum contracts.

Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC) and Occidental signed five agreements, which cover fields with approximately 2.5 billion barrels of recoverable high-quality oil reserves. The agreement would also allow both parties to design and implement major field redevelopment and exploration programs in the prolific Sirte Basin.

A statement by NOC said an accord was direct resultant of NOC's negotiations to modify and improve previous accords in oil exploration in the country.

NOC's Chairman Shokri Ghanem said improvement of accord conditions are in favour of Libya's interests according to changing circumstances of oil market and evolution of contractual relations between oil producing countries and international oil firms.

“This pattern of agreements is based on cutting sharply foreign shares which decrease further when output rises," he said.

Occidental chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ray R. Irani said new agreements are an important step toward Libya's near-term goal of maximizing oil production in its rich oil fields.

Occidental said after capital investment of about US$5 billion over the next five years, ‘gross production in oil field is expected to triple from current production to 300,000 barrels per day to more than 3 million barrels per day in the near future’.

Occidental Petroleum Corporation is an international oil and gas exploration and production company with operations in United States, Middle East/North Africa and Latin America regions.

It began its operations in Libya in 1965 and continued operating until US sanctions were imposed in 1986. Oxy was the first US Company to resume oil operations in Libya after sanctions were lifted in 2004.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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