Libya Launches Gas Pipeline to Europe
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the weekend, opened a gas pipeline between their countries in a new era of "friendship and cooperation" across the Mediterranean.
The two leaders inaugurated the 540-kilometre (335-mile) West Libyan Gas pipeline at Mellita, said an AFP correspondent at the
"We now want to make it a day of friendship and cooperation between Libya and Italy, a cooperation which has been cemented by the gas project which we are inaugurating today," he said.
The project, started in 2003, has been built by Italian oil groups ENI and Agip in partnership with Libya's state oil company NOC.
It will carry some 10 billion cubic metres (353 billion cubic feet) of gas a year from Mellitah on Libya's west coast to Gela in Sicily and then on into southern Europe.
Fuad al-Kreikshi, president of EN-Libya, said the total investment on what he called the longest gas pipeline under the Mediterranean amounted to 6.6 billion dollars. Revenues are projected at "20 billion dollars over 20 years", he said.
In his speech, Gaddafi, who has been in power ever since 1969, also announced that Libya would allow the return of Italians who had been expelled by his regime in 1970.
"Our friend Berlusconi ... made a modest request to the Libyan people ... to allow the elderly Italians who colonised Libya and were expelled on October 7, 1970 to come and visit Libya," said Colonel Gaddafi.
"I call on the Libyan people to accept this request ... And those who want to come and work in Libya can do so," he said.
Almost 20,000 Italians born in Libya were expelled 34 years ago and had all their possessions seized, according to Giovanna Ortu, president of an association for Italians repatriated from the North African country.
Talks between Gaddafi and Berlusconi, who was scheduled to return home later Thursday, were expected to be dominated by the pressing issue of would-be immigrants heading for southern Europe.
Rome has identified Libya as being the main launchpad for crossings by sub-Saharan and north African migrants trying to reach Europe via Italy, and has been pressing Tripoli for more than a year to take action.
Thousands of potential asylum-seekers have been intercepted by Italian border guards in recent weeks, mainly on the tiny island of Lampedusa off the Sicilian coast.
Last week, Italy resumed its controversial response of flying the would-be immigrants en masse back to Libya, although few originate in the north African country.
On the economic front, gas exports are at the heart of a recent opening up of Libya's economy, as the former pariah state comes back into the fold of the international community.
Its return follows last year's publicly renunciation of weapons of mass destruction programmes.
Tripoli also hopes to double its oil production to three million barrels a day by 2010, at an estimated cost of 30 billion dollars, for which Libya is seeking further foreign investment.
Libyan oil is considered attractive because of its high quality, relatively cheap extraction cost and proximity to the huge consumer mass of Europe.
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