Russ Oil-Gas

MOSCOW, February 22 (RIA Novosti) - Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) signed on Friday an exploration and production sharing agreement on an oil and gas field with Russian energy giant Gasprom, the Libyan company said. The deposit is located in the Ghadames Basin, near the North African country's borders with Algeria and Tunisia. NOC said in a news release that Gazprom will invest over $100 million in the project, won in a tender last December. Gazprom is currently running three projects in Libya. The state-controlled gas giant signed a production-sharing agreement with NOC for a sector covering 10 sq km (3.8 sq miles) in the Mediterranean. The company plans to invest $200 million in the project by 2012. Gazprom recently obtained 49.9% in two oil concessions in Libya from Germany's BASF under an asset swap agreement. Libya's proven natural gas reserves total about 1.49 trillion cu m, putting it in fourth place in Africa after Algeria, Nigeria and Egypt. The country's annual oil production is 80.1 million tons (588.7 million bbl), and 7 billion cu m of natural gas. A total of 83% of gas produced in Libya is consumed domestically, and the remaining 17% is exported. Libya takes first place in Africa and fifth place among OPEC countries after Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Iraq in terms of proven reserves of sweet crude, which total 5.1 billion tons (37.5 billion bbl). NOC was founded in 1970. The company owns a petrochemical complex and several oil refineries.