Libya and other OPEC states add more oil to the market

Libya's top oil official said that some OPEC countries, including Libya, have been pumping more oil compared with recent past months as customers ask for additional supplies.
"We in Libya have increased our production because some customers have asked for more oil. And I know some other OPEC countries are doing this as well," Shokri Ghanem, head of Libya's state-run National Oil Co. told. "There is enough oil in the market and this is why OPEC doesn't need to take any formal action" at the producer group's meeting on Sept. 11 in Vienna, he said.

Libya has recently been producing about 1.75 mm bpd versus 1.60 mm bpd a few months ago, he said. He declined to mention which other OPEC members have been pumping more oil recently. Ghanem said he wasn't yet overly concerned about demand faltering in the US where markets there and elsewhere are unnerved about the wider economic fallout stemming from US credit problems, spurred by rising defaults on subprime housing loans.
"We will of course haveto look at the data when (OPEC) meets, but demand in the US, I think, is OK at the moment," Ghanem said.

He added he believed the recent run-up in oil prices, which trade just above $ 74 a barrel, was due to speculators feeding off ongoing supply disruptions in places like Nigeria and fears of possible and actual hurricane-induced shut-ins of oil production in the US and Mexico.
Ghanem said Libya planned to announce that 55 companies, including several oil majors like Chevron, will qualify to submit bids for Libya's first post-sanction licensing round, which will focus on gas exploration. Around 70 companies applied to take part in the licensing round.

Libya, trying to tap a big chunk of underdeveloped gas reserves and position itself as a large gas exporter to Europe in the future, is offering foreign energy companies 12 contracts involving 41 blocks. Libya's proven gas reserves total around 53 tcf, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and industry analysts believe these reserves could double in size after foreign energy companies begin exploring and mapping out the country's geology.
Libya's latest licensing round is its fourth since the end of most sanctions against the country in 2004.