French President Jacques Chirac was in Libya last week.

He was accompanied by about 15 senior business leaders including executives from the French oil giant Total, gas firm Gaz de France, combat aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation and defense group Thales. Business, especially the vast unexplored energy resources and the crumbling energy infrastructure of Libya, were one of the major attractions for the trip to the North African country. Analysts strongly feel the French president’s 24-hour trip to Tripoli gave France the chance to stake a claim for lucrative business contracts that could follow the liberalization of business environment in Libya.

Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, British Prime Minister Blair and German Chancellor Schroeder have already made visits to Libya, apparently aimed at staking their claims to some of the Libyan riches.

The long-awaited vision of Libyan oil and gas investment has also begun to take shape and major players on the energy stage are scrambling to take ensure a share in the pie.

With new acreage on offer and accessible after the lifting of the US sanctions, Tripoli airport is teeming with oil and gas executives.

The state owned National Oil Company of Libya is hence capitalizing on this interest and the opportunity provided after the lifting of sanction. It extended its first open-bid license round to 15 areas from the earlier expected 8. That move was widely interpreted by observers as possible test run for the new, fourth generation exploration and production sharing agreement.

The Libyan National Oil Company has offered blocks in all of its major oil and gas basins.

These include the Sirte basin which has 80 percent of the Libyan proven reserves and 90 percent of its production. Although easy targets in the basin appear limited, yet deeper targets are relatively unexplored.

Other acreages on offer include Ghadames, Libya’s second most explored basin and Murzuq - the “most successful” area for recent investors with little exploration to date. Also available on hammer is the Cyrenica-Batnan area, where till yet only 70 wells have been drilled, with only minor finds to date. However, it is interesting to point out that rewards on the Egyptian side of the basin have been extensive over the last five years. This has raised expectation of major finds in this basin on the Libyan side as well. Also the Kufra basin and offshore acreage are also on offer, which had minimal explorations as yet and is still virgin in some respects with interesting prospects.

Libya has significant hydrocarbon reserves. Its proven crude reserves stand today at 39.5 billion barrels, and as per the US energy Information Administration (EIA), 12 of its fields are holding at least 1 billion barrels each. Then despite lack of focused exploration on the gas sector, its gas reserves, believed basically to be chance finds, stand today at 56 tcf. Libya is thus attractive to the consumers and the beeline to Tripoli is a clear proof of that.