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By Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 14 April 2013:
Moves to supply Tunisia with Libyan crude oil as well as oil products have taken a . . .[restrict]further step forward with agreement on Friday to set up a joint committee to oversee the plans. Approval was given by Oil and Gas Minister Abdulbari Arusi and Tunisian Minister of Industry Mehdi Juma at a meeting in Tunisia.
A deal to supply Tunisia with cheap Libyan oil was agreed last May.
There was also a deal on Friday on a joint committee to oversee electricity supplies between the two countries.
The ministers also reviewed the Skhira refinery project and the possibility of joint projects exploiting border region hydrocarbon reserves.
The $2-billion Skhira project was first awarded to Qatar Petroleum in 2007. The plan was to build a 120,000-barrel-a-day refinery at the Gulf of Gabes town, site of the pipeline terminal connected to Tunisian and Algerian oilfields. The project was then shelved because changing fuel prices made it uneconomic. However in late 2010, the Qaddafi regime’s prime minister, Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi announced Libya would take it over and provide Libyan oil as feedstock. This plan was then derailed by the revolutions in both countries. But last year the Qatari government announced that it was rejoining and reviving the project. However, it said that that costs had escalated and a second partner was needed.
The refinery is to produce petrol and diesel as well as petroleum coke, bitumen and gasoil for domestic consumption as well as exports. It is envisaged that the capacity of the complex will eventually rise to 250,000 b/d and that most of the feedstock will come from Libya.
The Tunisian Minister stressed on Friday that Tunisia wanted to speed up the Skhira project and that a formal agreement committing Libya to provide his country with oil should be signed.
However, Arusi pointed out that while Libya would continue to support projects already agreed between the two countries, the Libyan oil industry was being restructured and a larger role for the private sector in major projects was now expected.
Last December, Canadian energy company Sonde has announced that it has reached an agreement with the Joint Oil Company, equally owned by Libya and Tunisia, to enter a second phase of exploration under the Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement in the Gulf of Gabes. [/restrict]
