Libya Is Enticing U.S. Executives With Its Abundant Oil Reserves

[Be Brave]

I guess there's no need to invade Libya.

By JAD MOUAWAD

Published: January 2, 2005

RIPOLI, Libya - For the first time in a decade, a new oil territory is opening up. Reopening, that is.

American oil executives have recently been flocking to Libya, crowding the lobby of Tripoli's only luxury hotel and literally standing in line to meet local officials. The executives are bent on finding out whether this oil-rich North African country - long walled off from foreign investment because of its anti-American regime and ties to terrorist organizations - could become the next frontier for exploration.

What the petroleum crowd is after lies hundreds of miles south of this enclave founded by Phoenician traders in the seventh century B.C., beneath a desert the size of Alaska that holds oil reserves estimated at over 36 billion barrels. That is enough to meet the daily imports of the United States for eight years.

And that may be just a starting point. At a time when oil around the world is harder to come by, Libya is dangling the rights to explore and develop new sources of petroleum. The country holds the largest oil reserves in Africa, but as a producer it trails Nigeria and Angola. And, as every Libyan official inevitably points out, only a quarter of the country has properly been explored for oil.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/business/02libya.html?ex=1262408400&en=650322f29f17c13f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&pagewanted=all

[neweurope]

1. That is enough to meet the daily imports of the United States for ...

...eight years." BOMB THEM TO SMITHEREENS! US-needs satisfied for eight years - now that's well worth a lowly third world country's final destruction, isn't it?