Tripoli: Libya, holder of Africa's largest oil reserves, signed a final agreement granting exploration and production rights to Gazprom, the North African nation's National Oil Corp. said.
Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer, Royal Dutch Shell, Occidental Petroleum Corp, RWE AG of Germany, Algeria's Sonatrach and Polskie Gornictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo of Poland won an auction in December for exploration rights in potentially gas-rich areas of the country.
Gazprom will spend at least $110 million on exploration in an area called Block 64, in the region of Ghadames, in southwestern Libya, and $10 million when the agreement is approved by the government, National Oil said on its website.
The contract requires Gazprom and the other auction winners to share any discoveries with the government.
Expansion plan
Libya wants to increase oil production to three million barrels a day by 2013, from 1.74 million barrels at present, and gas output from 2.7 billion cubic feet a day to 3.8 billion cubic feet a day in 2015.
Last week, London-based private equity firm Klesch said it had signed an $8 billion deal to build a 300,000 barrels per day oil refinery and a 725,000 tonne per year aluminium smelter in Libya.
The complex is to be built by 2011, Klesch and Co. Ltd. said in a statement.
Head of the company A. Gary Klesch did not disclose where exactly the complex would be built, but the Libyan government would make an announcement "in due course".
He added that the project fitted in well with the company's other activities.
