ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the record of Libyan oil production from its beginning in 1961 until 1971. By the middle of 1969 Libya was exporting, on a monthly basis, 3.1 million barrels a day — a level comparable with the other leading oil exporters of the time — Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Libyan leadership in this field was very temporary, but as Government take per barrel in Libya was higher than in Iran and Saudi Arabia, total oil revenues at the time were about the same level as those of the two Middle Eastern producers, though still behind Venezuela. In France, the United Kingdom and West Germany, prices continued to fall, but the firmness of the average sales value of products derived from a barrel of Libyan crude between 1965 and 1967 may be attributed to a marked hardening of prices in Italy, which hitherto had been a depressed market.
