Experts disagree with impact of EU sanctions against Libya on global energy market

Azerbaijan, Baku, April 15 / Trend A. Badalova /

Introducing the EU additional sanctions against Libya's oil and gas sector will have no consequences for the European or the world energy market as a whole, Research Director of the Italian think tank Istituto Bruno Leoni, Carlo Stagnaro, said.

But, in this moment of relatively abundant supply, even that seems more a mere political statement than a real threat, either to Libya or to anybody else," he told Trend via e-mail.
During the meeting in Luxembourg foreign ministers of 27 EU countries decided to tighten the sanctions against Qaddafi's regime, including another 26 oil and gas companies of North African country in the sanction list. According to the EU, they finance Qaddafi's regime.
Oil embargoes never worked, and they never will, he said.

As far as gas is concerned, I am not sure whether an embargo makes more harm to the seller, or to the buyer, he said.

Mass demonstrations demanding for the ouster of Qaddafi, who has been ruling the country for more than 40 years, started in Libya in mid-February and subsequently grew into armed confrontation between the government forces and the rebels.
In mid-February in Libya began mass demonstrations calling for the withdrawal of the ruling the country for more than 40 years, Gadhafi, who later turned into an armed confrontation between government forces and rebels.

The Libyan crisis has had a significant impact on oil prices on the world market, particularly for the North Sea Brent. It hits over $ 120 a barrel. It is the highest level since July 2008.

Libya ranks eighth on the volumes of oil production among 12 OPEC countries and third - in Africa, after Nigeria and Angola. The main importers of Libyan oil are Italy, Germany, Spain, France, China, the United States. Imports of Libyan oil covers 51 percent of Italy's needs, 13 percent - Germany's needs, and 5 percent - France's needs. Smaller volumes are imported by Austria, Great Britain, Greece, Switzerland and other European countries.
Jordan's economist Fahmi Kotout said that terminating Libyan oil supplies to European countries due to the sanctions can lead to a new world energy crisis.

"While Libya is a major oil supplier to Europe, the whole world economy will suffer as a result of terminating the work of the oil refineries in the country," he told Trend over phone.

He said that many countries with market economy may suffer from inflation and oil prices could rise to record level.

A. Tagiyeva contributed to this article.