Quick Statistics on Libya Oil and Natural Gas

Under normal conditions I never mix my job with my hobby (this blog). After seeing so many press articles containing inaccurate information, I decided to post the following information complied from best sources.  

Oil and Natural Gas provides 95% of Libya’s hard currency earnings and 95% of the government’s budget.

Libya holds the largest proved oil reserves in Africa. Proved oil reserves stand at 46.4 billion barrels, as of January 2011. That represents a share of more than 3% of World proved oil reserves.

Preliminary trade data indicate that Libya produced some 1.69 million barrels of crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) per day in January 2011. Of this amount, 1.58 mb/d was crude oil and the rest was NGL. Spare crude oil production capacity in January 2011 was 0.22 mb/d.

Libya consumed some 270,000 barrels of oil per day in 2010. Of this amount, approximately 80,000 barrels per day was imported.

Libyan crude oil exports were 1.205 mb/d in 2010. Over 85% of exports destined the customers in Europe. In January 2011, Libyan crude exports amounted over 1.1 mb/d.

Libya has six major oil export terminals. Five of these are located in the eastern part of the country and one in the western part near Tripoli.

Libya has five refineries, with a combined crude distillation capacity of 378,000 barrels per day.

Proven natural gas reserves are 1549 billion cubic meters (bcm) as of January 2010, corresponding to less than 1% of World’s total.

In 2009, Libyan marketed natural gas production reached 16 billion cubic meters (bcm).

Libya exported 10 bcm of gas in 2009. 93% (9 bcm) were exported to Italy via the Greenstream pipeline. Nearly 1 bcm was exported by LNG tankers to Spain.

In the first 11 months of 2010, Italy imported 29 million cubic meters of gas per day from Libya, accounting for some 13% of total Italian gas imports. In the same period, Spain imported 1.5 million cubic meters per day of gas from Libya via LNG, accounting for slightly over 1.5% of total Spanish gas imports.

Major international companies operating in Libya include ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Eni, Wintershall, StatoilHydro, Occidental, ConocoPhillips, Hess, Marathon, Repsol, Total, BG, RWE Dea, OMV.

 

Information compiled from:
IMF, press reports
Oil & Gas Journal, December 2010.
IEA Facts on Libya, 21 February 2011.
IEA, Oil Market Report, February 2011.
Joint Oil Data Initiative database, February 2011 update.
Cedigaz, Natural Gas in the World, October 2010.