Back in April 2008, Gazprom took further steps to strengthen its hold on natural gas supplies to Europe by signing a joint venture with Libya and saying it was in preliminary talks on a multibillion dollar project to pipe Nigerian gas to Europe across the Sahara. The announcement came as then President Putin was trying to coordinate policy with other gas producing states, notably Algeria to strengthen its influence in North Africa. It is reported Putin agreed to write off US$ 4.5 billion of debt from Libya in return for a multibillion dollar contract with Russian companies. Early in July 2008, a Gazprom delegation visited the country and subsequently declared that it has agreed with the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) to establish a joint venture aimed at upgrading the existing oil refining capacities in Libya and constructing new ones. Gazprom also indicated that the Libyan authorities had shown some interest in proposals concerning the potential purchase at competitive prices of Libya's total volume of oil, gas and LNG designed for export. Gazprom also accepted the Libyan party’s proposal to negotiate the potential construction of new capacities to transmit gas from Libya to Europe. Gazprom is operating a strategy to reinforce its presence in the North African market to counter European measures to reduce its dependence on Russian gas.
This article is extracted from International Oil Letter, Vol 24 issue 29 dated 21st July 2008.© Copyright 2008, IHS and its affiliated and subsidiary companies, all rights reserved. All trademarks belong to IHS and its affiliated and subsidiary companies unless otherwise noted, all rights reserved. The material and data contained herein have been compiled for the exclusive use of subscribers of IHS and no part hereof shall be reproduced, quoted or published in any manner without the written consent of IHS. Information presented in and used by IHS is obtained from operator sources but is not warranted as to its accuracy by the publishers.
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