ABSTRACT
Esso discovered oil in large quantities at Zelten on Concession No. 6 in June 1959, and rapidly developed the field for commercial production, beginning exports in 1961. This chapter shows that very few oil companies had the resources of their own, or access to the resources, to finance single-handed exploration and production operations leading to the development of a major oilfield, including pipeline transportation to sea, in Libya. Within a short time of the enactment of the Petroleum Law, and well before commercial oil had been discovered, there is evidence of some realisation in government quarters that, in the event of an oil industry developing, its fiscal terms were in some respects inordinately generous. Article 17 of the Petroleum Law stated: ‘a concession may not be assigned except with the consent of the Commission subject to such conditions as it may deem appropriate’.
