Experts expect oil boom in Libya

Libya's turnover of two suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie plane downing is likely to attract major international oil companies, Kuwaiti news agency KUNA quoted experts in New York as saying.

The likely return of oil companies is also motivated by the suspension of UN sanctions against Libya.

Besides Libya, the key beneficiaries will be ENI SPA of Italy, already Libya's biggest foreign oil producer and Lasmo PLC of Britain, experts said.

Both companies are expected to make major investments in Libya's oil industry. No American company is currently active in Libya after Exxon and Mobil corporations pulled out in 1992.

According to the source, Libya lost $ 24 billion in potential oil revenues since the security council enforced sanctions in 1992. Oil income, which used to account for 95% of Libya's hard currency earnings, fell by more than one third last year as crude prices slumped.

The Libyan government told the UN sanctions committee that 21,000 people have died as a result of the embargo, including 16,000 who perished because they could not be taken abroad for emergency surgery.