When global oil prices reached a 15-year high in 2022, Libya, which holds 3% of the world’s hydrocarbon reserves and 39% of Africa’s, was unable to take advantage of the windfall.
Given that Libya has exhibited all the stability of a puff adder on benzedrine since the West removed its longstanding leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011, it is little wonder that it has found attracting foreign investment into its flashpoint oil and gas sector a tad tricky since then.
CAIRO — Italy’s prime minister held talks in Libya on Saturday with officials from the country’s west-based government focusing on energy and migration, top issues for Italy and the European Union. During the visit, the two countries’ oil companies signed a gas deal worth $8 billion — the largest single investment in Libya’s energy sector in more than two decades.
Given the fragile supply-demand balance in the global energy market and the toxic inflation-interest rate mix with which many developed economies have been struggling, news of additional oil and gas supplies is welcome.