VIENNA // Libya's top oil technocrat, Shokri Ghanem, did not attend last Wednesday's OPEC meeting in a sign that he may have resigned as the chairman of the state-owned National Oil Company (NOC) amid mounting concerns that the country's resource nationalism could stifle foreign investment. OPEC confirmed today that Mr Ghanem, the de facto Libyan oil minister and a former prime minister, had not arrived in the Austrian capital. On Tuesday, Ali el Sogher, the director general of NOC, said he was representing Libya at the meeting. Mr Ghanem had indicated months ago that he wanted to retire. According to Libyan news sources, he had recently tendered his resignation after finding himself increasingly at odds with the political elite as the Libyan leader, Muammer Qadafi, and the country's General People's Congress, or parliament, aggressively sought to limit the role of foreign companies in the country's oil and gas sector. There was no official confirmation of Mr Ghanem's resignation: "He is still the top oil official and there is no replacement as of yet," Ahmed el Ghaber, the Libyan OPEC governor, told Dow Jones. But Samuel Ciszuk, the MENA energy analyst with the consulting firm IHS Global Insight, said Mr Ghanem had probably resigned due to "the increasing encroachment of resource-nationalistic and statist economy elements within the government". The effect has been the reversal of many reforms that Mr Ghanem had engineered to promote the rule of law and attract large-scale foreign investment to the oil sector. The NOC chief has been "the foremost champion of creating a stable regulatory framework and an attractive business environment" in Libya, Mr Ciszuk added. As the head of NOC, Mr Ghanem had also pushed international oil companies in Libyan joint ventures to accept smaller revenue shares in exchange for contract extensions. But recently he had become concerned that politicians with no industry experience were pushing resource nationalism too far. Last week, Tripoli issued a directive instructing joint ventures with foreign participants to appoint Libyan chief executives. This and other moves have led western executives to question whether investing in Libya is worthwhile. This week, even the Chinese seemed to lose patience. On Tuesday, Verenex Energy, a small Canadian company with significant oil discoveries in Libya, said China National Petroleum Corporation had withdrawn a US$460 million (Dh1.68 billion) takeover offer after the Libyan government withheld approval for the deal. Mr Ghanem had urged Tripoli to pre-empt the Chinese offer for Verenex by matching it, but had reportedly disapproved of the government's tactic of blocking the takeover in order to acquire Verenex at a lower price. The events unfolding in Libya hint at a policy power struggle, according to Mr Ciszuk. Whether Mr Ghanem is allowed to quit "could be very telling for the country's future direction and position as one of the most significant business opportunities in the oil and gas industry", he said. tcarlisle@thenational.ae
