National Oil Corporation - Introduction

Introduction

Bashir Sadawi Street
Tripoli
Libya
Telephone: (218) 21 444-6181
Fax: (218) 21 333-1930
Web site: http://www.noclibya.com

State-Owned Company
Incorporated: 1970
NAIC: 211111 Crude Petroleum and Natural Gas Extraction; 213111 Drilling Oil and Gas Wells; 213112 Support Activities for Oil and Gas Operations

The National Oil Corporation of Libya (NOC) is a state-owned company that controls Libya's oil and gas production. The company is the biggest oil producer in Africa. Linoco's main export market is Italy, followed by Germany, Spain, and France. The company is rich in reserves and also controls unexplored land presumed to be rich in oil. The Libyan National Oil Corporation (Linoco) was created under Law No. 24 of March 5, 1970. It replaced the older Libyan General Petroleum Corporation (Lipetco) with a new national oil company. Its mandate, similar to Lipetco's, was "to endeavor to promote the Libyan economy by undertaking development, management and exploitation of oil resources … as well as by participating … in planning and executing the general oil policy of the state." The fortunes of NOC, therefore, cannot be separated from those of Libya, since the corporation acts as a government instrument of control, supervision, and participation in the oil industry and particularly in its relations with other oil companies. The company suffered from a lack of foreign investment through most of the 1990s because of United States and United Nations sanctions against Libya, which was accused of backing terrorists and shielding men accused of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over Locherbie, Scotland, in 1988. As the Locherbie case wound down in 2003, Libya expected a new round of foreign investment in its oil fields in the mid-2000s.