Russia, Libya boost energy ties

Signalling a revival of Soviet-era strategic ties between Russia and Libya, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi said in Moscow on November 1 his country will enhance cooperation in the oil and gas sector with Russia, the word’s leading energy exporter. “We consider cooperation with Russia in the oil and gas sector as very timely at this moment ... Moreover, we have common approaches to the oil and gas policy,” Gaddafi said during talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Gaddafi visited Moscow just two months after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was his guest in Libya. During the Moscow visit, Gaddafi pitched a Bedouin tent in a Kremlin garden and invited Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for tea. Qadhafi’s Moscow visit came six months after then President Putin opened a new chapter in relations between Russia and Libya by becoming the first Kremlin leader to visit Tripoli. Russia’s energy giants, such as Gazprom, Tatneft, Tatneftegeofizika, LUKoil and Stroitransgaz are operating in Libya’s oil and gas sector. Their projects range from geological surveys, offshore exploration and development to oil refining and pipeline construction. In July, Gazprom offered to buy all of Libya’s natural gas production.

“We think alike about gas and oil policies,” Interfax quoted Gaddafi as saying. Gazprom head Alexei Miller and Libya’s National Oil Corporation chief Shukri Mohamed Ganem reached agreement to hold trilateral talks with Italy’s ENI later this month on joint projects, including a new major gas pipeline running under the Mediterranean from Libya to Europe. For now, Libya and Algeria compete with Russia to supply gas to southern Europe. Libya already supplies gas to Italy directly or through Tunisia. Meanwhile, Algeria’s Energy Ministry on November 3 confirmed that work on the undersea Medgaz pipeline between Spain and Algeria was already edging closer to completion.

The Russian authorities are also negotiating to provide Libya with a civilian nuclear research reactor and signed a framework agreement on nuclear cooperation. The civil nuclear pact signed by the nuclear energy chiefs of Russia and Libya provides for the construction of reactors in Libya and cooperation in medicine and nuclear waste disposal, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelrahman Chalgham, who accompanied Qadhafi to Moscow, was quoted by the press as saying.

http://www.neurope.eu/articles/90512.php