Libyan Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah said Saturday that Libya has signed a 25-year oil development agreement with France’s TotalEnergies and the US company ConocoPhillips, a package he said tops $20 billion in investment and is intended to lift production at the Waha Oil Company toward 850,000 barrels per day.
In a Facebook post, Dbeibah said the deal is designed to expand Waha’s output capacity and projected that Libya’s net revenues could exceed $376 billion over the life of the agreement. He also announced a memorandum of understanding with the US-based Chevron and a separate cooperation memorandum with Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, without releasing details.
The announcements came on the sidelines of the Libya Energy & Economic Summit in Tripoli, where international firms and Libyan entities gathered as the country again tries to translate its vast hydrocarbon reserves into predictable state income.
Libya holds Africa’s largest proven oil reserves and once produced well over 1 million barrels per day, but output has repeatedly swung with political crises, armed standoffs, and shutdowns at fields and export terminals. Since the 2011 uprising that toppled Moammar Gadhafi, rival power centers in the west and east have battled over budgets, institutions, and control of the National Oil Corporation’s revenues. International diplomacy has focused on stabilizing the country and unifying governance, but oil remains both Libya’s economic lifeline and its most contested prize.
For Dbeibah, boosting production is a claim of competence and legitimacy. For investors, the promise is large—and so is the risk.