The Minister of Oil and Gas, Mohamed Aoun, said that the export of gas from Libya to Europe via Italy through the Greenstream pipeline has not stopped, and that an increase in export quantities is not possible at the current stage, but rather it can be considered in the long term after five years.
In an interview with the Emirates News Agency, WAM, he confirmed that Libya has developed a short-term strategic plan for the oil and gas sector, aimed at raising its oil production to two million barrels per day, and includes developing new discovered fields and raising the production capacity of existing fields, in addition to developing the infrastructure that was damaged due to the events. He added that the National Oil Corporation plan works to overcome the obstacles and challenges facing the sector in Libya and focuses on many axes, including structuring the oil and gas sector and its affiliates.
He also indicated that the plan also aims to increase oil production by expanding oil exploration in land and sea areas, to achieve financial revenues for the state and increase its income, in addition to focusing on using natural gas to generate electricity during the coming decades, as well as working on investing oil wealth, including Shale gas and its good exploitation and development to increase proven reserves of oil and gas.
Regarding the presence of oil and gas stocks in the Libyan economic water in the eastern Mediterranean, Aoun said that what is being presented in terms of numbers are preliminary expectations that need to drill exploratory and evaluation wells to determine the stocks, adding: “We are waiting for the companies to return to start their work.”
Aoun stated that the global oil market is subject to many influencing factors, including supply and demand, the political situation in the producing countries, the political unrest in some countries of the world, and the lack of financing and investments, expecting that the increase in demand will achieve balance in the market and push oil prices to the increase during the period between the third quarter of this year 2023 and the first quarter of next year 2024.
The Minister of Oil stated that Libya is currently working on developing two new solar energy projects, one in southern Libya in “Rabana” and the second in the east of it in the “Saada” region, west of Misrata, with a production capacity of 500 megawatts each, and it is expected that the two projects will enter into operation by the year 2025. In addition to projects under development to take advantage of flaming gas instead of burning it and emitting it into the air, as well as developing a strategy to reduce methane gas (energy, agriculture and waste), in light of the trend towards strengthening the circular carbon economy framework and carbon capture, use and storage to reduce greenhouse gases and preserve the environment. .