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By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 02 December 2015:
The world’s largest international oil trading group Vitol has announced that it ‘’sees the Tripoli-based . . .[restrict]NOC as the sole legal’’ representative for the whole of Libya.
Vitol made the announcement this week as it sought to renew a new contract with NOC Tripoli to supply fuel for 2016.
In a statement released Monday, Vitol CEO Ian Taylor said that “The UN Security Council recently said it was important for NOC to continue to function for the benefit of all Libyans. The key word there is ‘continue’. NOC, based at its legal address in Tripoli, has served Libya well by staying independent. We are confident it will continue to do so.”
The company said that it ‘’has been working with the NOC throughout 2015 to supply fuel and that it looked forward to concluding a contract for 2016 with the NOC in the next few days’’.
It added that it will ‘’100 per cent guarantee and secure regular delivery of fuel to all of Libya, including the heavy oil required to support local infrastructure, such as power stations, desalination plants and hospitals’’
Vitol now joins Glencore and Litasco commodity traders in choosing to recognize.
The world’s second largest oil trader, Glencore, had announced last week that it recognized the Tripoli-based NOC and confirmed it had signed a deal to export Libyan oil. The announcement had invoked a reaction from the Beida-based government who had warned that any contracts signed with Tripoli could be deemed illegal.
It will be recalled that Libya as two administrations, one based in Tripoli and an internationally-recognized one based in Al-Beida and Tobruk with its own newly-formed NOC.
The eastern-based NOC has so far failed to lure contracted international oil companies from either dealing with or diverting the payment of oil money into its newly created bank accounts. [/restrict]
