Libya scrutinising ‘suspect’ foreign oil deals agreed under Gaddafi’s rule

Libya has started investigating foreign oil companies over their past relationships with the government of Muammar al-Gaddafi, an investigator with the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) has said.

Salem Qanan, who sits on the NTC’s oil committee, yesterday said it had requested documents from Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), which is in charge of contracts between private companies and the state.

Mr Qanan said his committee had received information from people who worked in the energy sector during Gaddafi’s rule that led it to suspect the contracts agreed during that time.

“There are some suspicions over some contracts that were made by the NOC and foreign companies which seem to have been influenced by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi,” he said.

Saif al-Islam is one of the sons of the former Libyan leader, who is in detention in Libya and wanted for trial both by the Libyan authorities and the International Criminal Court.

During Gaddafi’s four decades of rule, many of the world’s major oil companies either operated in Libya or signed oil deals with Tripoli.

In October, Libya pledged an investigation of Gaddafi-era oil deals. Industry sources have long expected a wide-scale probe of oil deals by the new rulers in Libya, who are under pressure to root out any corruption from the Gaddafi era.

A by-product of the investigation, industry sources say, could be that some old contracts are reallocated to reward countries, such as the UK and France, that supported last year’s uprising, which ended Gaddafi’s rule.