The employers of the Italian hydrocarbons giant Eni and the Libyan National Oil Company NOC signed a “historic” agreement this Saturday in Tripoli for the exploitation of two gas fields off the coast of Libya. “We are here today to sign the most important agreement in the last 20 years,” said Claudio Descalzi, Eni’s CEO, before an official signing attended by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and his Libyan counterpart Abdelhamid. Dbeibah, according to images provided by the Libyan authorities.
It is the “first major project developed in Libya since 2000” in two fields located offshore, capable of producing “from 2026, between 750 and 800 million cubic meters of gas per day,” Eni said in a press release. present in the country. since 1959.
An investment of 8,000 million dollars in three years
This association, described as “historic” by Claudio Descalzi, will allow “significant investments” in the energy sector, “the creation of jobs” in Libya and the strengthening of the position of Eni, which is already “the first operator “with 80%. of Libyan gas production. “It will meet most of Libya’s needs and a third of the capacity will be exported to Italy.”
The agreement provides for “the investment of 8 billion (dollars) in a period of three years”, a partnership that the sector “has not known for 25 years”, added Farhat Bengdara, head of the NOC. It is “the culmination of long negotiations” between the two parties, in which “we take into account the interests of the Libyan state and the strategic interests of our partner,” said Farhat Bengdara, who celebrated the new “testimony of solidity.” of relations between the two Mediterranean countries.
Libya’s oil sector ‘is risk-free’
Farhat Bengdara also took the opportunity to renew Tripoli’s “request” to international companies to return to Libya, which has the most abundant reserves in Africa but is still mired in a serious political crisis that has persisted since 2011. The signing of the Italian -El The Libyan agreement is “a clear indication that the oil sector is risk-free” and that it is capable of “competing with” the world’s largest oil-producing countries, he said.
The two officials refused to answer questions “of a political nature,” saying they were “technical” in the hydrocarbons sector. “It is a commercial agreement that we have been working on for ten years, (…) it is not a political agreement,” insisted Eni’s boss.
Source: BFM TV
