Libya’s Energy Future: Industry and Political risk outlook was launched at a Chatham House seminar in London on 20 July.
Based on African Energy’s unparalleled track record in following Libya’s energy story and careful, originally sourced reporting from Libya and global markets, this updated and enlarged special report analyses the major issues and the financial and political trends influencing development of Libya's energy industries. Read more
A detailed guide to electrification in Africa
A 400-page study published in Paris by Karthala, L’Electricité au Coeur des Défis Africains (available in French only) includes an overview of the continental electricity supply industry and examples of generation, transmission and distribution projects. A chapter on decentralised rural electrification is followed by another on the establishment of decentralised services companies.
The book draws on articles and materials from a number of experts and sources, including African Energy.
Order a copy now, priced €36 / £30 plus postage and packing. Email: nick@africa-energy.com
AfricaHardball is an executive dialogue that brings together policy-makers, industry leaders and analysts to discuss the key political issues affecting the African energy industry in frank and open terms.
The last AfricaHardball roundtable was held on 29 June, prior to the start of EnergyNet Ltd’s annual Africa Energy Forum (AEF), in Basel. Read more
A detailed and frank analysis of Libya’s energy sector
More companies to leave
Gas offers main hope for future
New publication sheds light on an opaque market where information is difficult to find
The second edition of African Energy’s Libya’s Energy Future special report was launched at a round table seminarat the Royal Institute of International Affairs’ Middle East and North Africa Programme (Menap) at Chatham House on Tuesday 20 July.
The key findings of this 72-page report, analysed in detail in the extensively rewritten and expanded publication, are that:
• UPSTREAM – exploration results will get worse, perhaps much worse, before they get better. Many international oil companies (IOCs) look ready to pull out by the end of this year. But some large exploration programmes may eventually relieve this situation over the long term, particularly if they enable large gas projects to go ahead;
• LEGAL CHANGES – oversight and control of the energy sector is still not clear. National Oil Corporation chairman Shukri Ghanem is still very powerful, but other institutions, including the Supreme Council for Energy Affairs, may also grow in authority. The General People’s Committee and other parts of the state have weight. Rewriting the petroleum law could introduce unforeseen risks for IOCs if Ghanem does not get his way;
• DOWNSTREAM OPENING – by encouraging foreign investors into refining and petrochemicals partnerships, Ghanem is quietly restructuring NOC in an attempt to build a broader, more market-oriented industrial base;
• ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL LIBERALISATION – reforms to the tax and banking systems that have started over the past year will accelerate an ongoing and until now scarcely noticed commercial revolution. A domestic private sector, especially in the provision of oil services, is developing very quickly and changing the face of the Jamahiriya as it does so.
Libya’s Energy Future – background
Libya’s Energy Future 2010/11 builds on a special issue of African Energy that was published last year, one month before the 40th anniversary of Colonel Muammar Qadhafi’s ‘Great El Fatah Revolution’. Extensively rewritten and expanded by John Hamilton, supported by correspondents in Libya and third countries, and by Cross-border Information’s team of writers and researchers, it is intended to give an informed overview and analysis of the electricity, and upstream and downstream gas and oil industries in the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (State of the Masses).
It also examines Libya’s governance and financial record, and assesses the potential for international partners to do business with its institutions and interest groups. This includes analysis of the Libyan political system, from the influence of younger members of the Qadhafi family to the continued importance of tribal relationships. It also provides analysis of the emergence of a more functional and globalised financial system – a significant positive trend that has been reflected in a series of microeconomic developments which should benefit the Libyan population and investors alike.
Supporting the analytical report, this edition of Libya’s Energy Future also includes, in one volume, African Energy’s practical guide to the industry: The Libya Oil and Gas Handbook 2010/11. The handbook’s publication sprang from a desire to understand the sector by making available as many contacts as possible within the Jamahiriya and among its business community – giving readers the benefits of years of visits to companies and interviews by CbI staff. Each entry opens with a profile of the company and contains contact details. Profiles of the most important companies can be cross-referenced with more detailed information published in the Libya’s Energy Future Update tables.
Libya’s Energy Future offers not only detailed insight into specific projects and players, but also a clear understanding and analysis of the dominant issues, making it essential reading for anyone serious about doing business in Libya
To mark the publication of African Energy’s newly updated and expanded Libya’s Energy Future report and associated The Libya Oil and Gas Handbook, publisher Cross-border Information Ltd (CbI) and the Royal Institute of International Affairs’ Middle East and North Africa Programme (Menap) held a morning-long roundtable seminar at Chatham House, London on Tuesday 20 July to discuss the issues raised by the report.
The report was presented by its lead authors, John Hamilton and Jon Marks, and critically assessed by Libyan and international experts including
Dr Bourima Ali Belgasem,
executive general manager,
Supreme Energy Affairs Council, Libya; and Professor Paul Stevens, recipient of the 2009 OPEC Award in recognition of his outstanding work in the field of oil and energy research.
Topics tcovered included:
Qadhafi family politics – The relative standings of Colonel Qadhafi’s children within the Jamahiriya (State of the Masses). Speakers examined the roles of key family members not only from the point of view of succession, but also present day policy-making and economic influence. The report includes family trees and other data.
Reform or reaction? – The conflict to shape Libya’s future between reformist and traditionalist tendencies is far from resolved. The seminar examined the successes and failures of attempts to reform Libya’s economy and government.
Key institutions – Libya deploys its rapidly growing wealth through a number of massive funds and institutions that operate both domestically and internationally. The report analyses the most important of these, asking who controls them and how they are spending their money.
Finance and investment – Over the past two years, the government has advanced a massive programme of banking, investment and tax reform that on paper adds up to a major advance in economic reform. Speakers explained the detail and assessed how the reforms will – or won’t – work.
Energy policy – An overview of National Oil Corporation’s relationships with international companies, its internal dynamics, and the battle to reform or control the sector. With at least ten maps and graphics, detailed project tables and deal analysis, the report gives a comprehensive overview of the oil and gas, and electricity industries.
Qadhafi and the world – The overlap of business and diplomacy presents both opportunities and great dangers to international companies engaging with the Jamahiriya. Speakers examined how companies have won and lost in this unstable environment
All delegates received a complimentary copy of the full Libya's Energy Future report.
Sample articles on Libya from the African Energy archives
Al-Megrahi’s return protects vital interests
Nearly a decade of quiet British diplomacy and adroit Libyan manoeuvring left Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill with no realistic option but to return convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset Ali Mohammed Al-Megrahi to Libya. Any alternative would have thrown into question the whole logic of rapprochement with Libya – one of the UK’s few notable international triumphs of recent years. Issue 169, 4 September 2009.Read the full article
How BP’s Libya deal got back on track
The ratification of BP’s $900m gas exploration contract with National Oil Corporation (NOC) returns British relations with Libya to an even keel. As African Energy exclusively reported in November, Libyan Leader Muammar Qadhafi halted the deal to pressure the UK into allowing Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohammed Al-Megrahi to be repatriated (AE 126/1). Issue 132, 8 February 2008.Read the full article
Libya: big opportunities, tough market – then there’s the politics
Concern that BP’s mega gas exploration and development deal may be delayed by the apparently never ending Lockerbie affair adds to the view that success in the Libyan hydrocarbons sector is hard to achieve, even for the biggest, best-supported operations in the business, writes John Hamilton. Issue 126, 16 November 2007.Read the full article
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