Libya's oil reserves grew by 653 million barrels in 2009 and a further 612 million barrels in the first half of 2010 after numerous new discoveries in the North African country, the head of National Oil Corp., or NOC, said Monday. NOC Chairman Shokri Ghanem told Zawya Dow Jones in an interview that NOC and international oil companies operating in Libya recorded a success rate of 51% among the 65 newly drilled discovery wells in the country last year that yielded both oil and gas
Libya 's oil reserves grew by 653 million barrels in 2009 and a further 612 million barrels in the first half of 2010 after numerous new discoveries in the North African country, the head of National Oil Corp., or NOC, said Monday.

NOC Chairman Shokri Ghanem told Zawya Dow Jones in an interview that NOC and international oil companies operating in Libya recorded a success rate of 51% among the 65 newly drilled discovery wells in the country last year that yielded both oil and gas.

"These discoveries added 653 million barrels in reserves and 782 billion cubic feet of gas in 2009, and in the first half of 2010 we made even more discoveries which increased reserves by 612 million barrels and more than 1 trillion cubic feet of gas," Ghanem said.

"This is more than Libya's production of the whole year 2009 of 600 million barrels," he said.

The discoveries have pushed Libya's total proved oil and gas reserves up to about 46 billion barrels and 55 trillion cubic feet respectively, Ghanem said.

The drilling activity also led to the discovery of another 20 new potential oil wells in neighboring areas, he said.

In 2009, the Oasis Oil Consortium--a group made up of NOC, Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO), ConoccoPhillips (COP) and Hess Corp. (HES)--made six of the 33 oil discoveries, while Arabian Gulf Oil Co., or AGOCO, which is 100% owned by NOC, made three discoveries, according to Ghanem.

Other discoveries were made by companies including Turkish Petroleum International Co., or TPIC, at six discoveries, and Russia' s Tatneft and Indonesia's Medco Energi Intersaional, which replaced Canada's Verenex Energy as the operator of Area 47, which made two discoveries each in partnership with NOC, he said.

Over the first six months of 2010, Sirte Oil Co., also 100% owned by NOC, Zueitina Oil Co.--an NOC venture involving Occidental Petroleum Corp. --and Petro-Canada  and Algeria's Sonatrach were among the companies that recorded successes, making one new oil discovery each, Ghanem said.

Ghanem said he expected Libya's oil reserves to be further boosted in coming months as drilling activity in the first half of 2010 only represented 40% of this year's total program.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries member Libya holds the largest proved oil reserves in Africa ahead of Nigeria, according to BP's latest Statistical Review of World Energy.

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