Libya: An Important Supplier For Europe

Click here for an essay by JEAN-PIERRE SÉRÉNI at CounterPunch entitled Why the Oil Companies Decided Qaddafi Has to Go on the history of Libya's oil development.

"Libya’s crude is excellent in quality, and its oilfields are close to Europe’s refineries, among the biggest in the world. Libyan oil currently represents around 15 per cent of consumption in France, although less than 10 per cent in the European Union. But the main reason is that the balance of power has shifted. In 1960 the British and US oil majors controlled most of the production outside the communist world. The national companies of producer countries have replaced them. They now own their mineral resources, and control access, even if they still need international companies to prospect for new oilfields.

"Looking for oil is risky and expensive, so it requires huge capital and technical expertise. National oil companies have neither. Most of the money they earn is spent elsewhere (the Gaddafi family, with six sons and one daughter, takes more than its share) and their sphere of activity remains confined within their borders. So despite expulsions, revolution and nationalisation, the renewal of ties is inevitable, with or without Gaddafi."

[Libya, unlike the Gulf states, can export to Europe using "capesize" vessels -- huge ships that are too large to negotiate the Suez Canal.]