Libya will sign a 25-year oil development agreement this Saturday with France’s TotalEnergies and U.S. energy major ConocoPhillips, marking one of the country’s largest foreign investment
commitments in over a decade, Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah said.
The deal, signed through Waha Oil Company, will involve more than $20 billion in foreign-financed investment and aims to raise Libya’s oil production capacity by up to 850,000 barrels per day, according to Dbeibah. The prime minister said the project could generate over $376 billion in net revenues over its lifetime.
Waha Oil Company, a subsidiary of Libya’s state-run National Oil Corporation (NOC), currently produces between 340,000 and 400,000 barrels per day under normal operating conditions. The company operates five major oil and gas fields, along with several subfields, connected by pipeline networks that transport crude oil to the Sidra export terminal and natural gas to processing facilities.
In addition to the TotalEnergies and ConocoPhillips agreement, Libya will sign a memorandum of understanding with U.S. oil giant Chevron and a cooperation agreement with Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum, Dbeibah said. The deals will be signed during the Libya Energy and Economy Summit taking place in Tripoli.
“These agreements reflect the strengthening of Libya’s relations with its largest and most influential international partners in the global energy sector,” Dbeibah said in a post on X.
Libya holds Africa’s largest proven oil reserves and remains one of the continent’s biggest crude producers. However, oil output has been repeatedly disrupted since 2014, when the country descended into political instability following the uprising that toppled longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Rival administrations in eastern and western Libya have since battled for control of key energy infrastructure.
The new agreements signal renewed efforts by the Tripoli-based government to stabilize production, attract foreign capital, and restore Libya’s role as a major supplier to global energy markets. Photo by Smarty9108, Wikimedia commons.