Outgoing Libyan Minister of Finance and Oil, Ali Tarhouni, affirmed on Thursday in Tripoli that Libya would not award any new oil contracts until a new government is formed.
Speaking to journalists, Mr. Tarhouni indicated that the interim government, that would run the country until the elections planned in eight months, would not enter into any new contracts.
He said, however, that oil production would exceed 700,000 barrels a day by the end of this year.
With oil reserves of about 44 billion barrels, Libya produced 1.7 million barrels a day before the uprising that killed long-time leader Mouammar Kadhafi.
The North African country is the third largest oil producer in Africa, after Nigeria and Angola.
The Libyan sub-soil also contains important reserves of gas, estimated at more than 1,500 billion cubic metres
