Eni, Libya's National Transitional Council sign agreement

Italy’s Eni SPA said it signed a memorandum of understanding with Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) that aims at strengthening cooperation between them.

Under the terms of the agreement, Eni and NTC said they are committed to “creating the conditions for a rapid and complete recovery of Eni's activities in Libya.”

The two sides also said they are committed to “doing all that is necessary to restart operations on the Greenstream pipeline, bringing gas from the Libyan coast to Italy.”

Eni and NTC, referring to the joint declaration signed on May 31 by the Italian government and NTC, said Eni has begun providing a first supply of refined petroleum products to NTC to contribute to “the basic and most urgent needs of the Libyan population.”

Eni also said it will also provide “technical assistance to assess the state of facilities and energy infrastructure in Libya and to define the type and extent of operations required to safely restart activities.”

The agreement came as rebel-held Zawiya refinery near Tripoli, which has been shut down since the beginning of Libya's rebellion in February, will soon resume operations, aiming to ease fuel shortages.

"After tomorrow, it will be operational," said Zawiya operations manager Mohammad Aziz, who added that the refinery will start processing stored crude first amid hopes of receiving new supplies from southern fields in two days.

Meanwhile, a tank at Waha Oil Co.’s Es-Sider oil terminal was reported to have been damaged during fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Libya’s embattled leader Moammar Gadhafi.

“One tank is on fire now, and we expect it will be damaged completely,” said an oil worker who added that no one was working in the terminal, which has a storage capacity of 6.3 million bbl of crude.

Waha Oil is owned by Libya’s National Oil Corp. in a joint venture of ConocoPhillips, Marathon, and Hess Corp. Waha Oil operates four main oil fields: Waha, Dahra, Samah, and Gialo.

The Es-Sider terminal stores oil produced from Sirte basin fields operated by Total SA and Eni.

Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].