By IRNA,
London : British oil giant BP is suspending operations in Libya as the escalating violence in the country pushed the price of oil to new two-year highs.
The company, whose oil deal was linked with the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, said that 40 expatriate staff and their families, mostly based in the capital, Tripoli, are also being evacuated as it temporarily shuts down work.
BP chief executive Bob Dudley said that he was monitoring the situation as tens of thousands of foreigners were trying to flee Libya, after clashes between security forces and protesters reportedly left hundreds dead.
‘We have operations there that are very limited, its the early stages of exploration,’ Dudley told Sky News. ‘We have some people there. Dependants have left the country but we remain committed to doing business there.’
French oil company Total also said Tuesday that it is continuing to repatriate the majority of its foreign staff and their families in Libya, but insisted that its oil production activity has been unaffected by violence in the country.
Italy’s ENI, the biggest producer in Libya with a daily output of about 244,000 barrels, has also announced it was repatriating all nonessential staff, while Norway’s Norwegian energy giant Statoil said it had begun evacuating its non-Libyan staff.
The suspension of BP operations comes just four years after it returned to Libya after a 30-year hiatus, having signed an exploration deal worth at least $900million in 2007.
The ongoing turmoil in Libya has pushed the price of benchmark Brent crude oil to $105.3 barrel as analysts warned further price hikes could follow, especially if the crisis spreads to Saudi Arabia.
Rebecca Seabury, an analyst at energy consultant Inenco, said that the market will be most concerned over the protests spilling into Saudi Arabia.
“As Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter, if the situation escalates this could take oil prices into the complete unknown and even higher than the $147 a barrel we saw in 2008,” Seabury told the Press and Journal daily in Aberdeen.