Muscat/Libyan ‘ministers’ oil deal update as of yesterday
Published:
September 5, 2013 at 10:54am
Tripoli, 4 September: seven-hour power failure, oil production down to below 100,000 barrels per day, militia threatening to blow up water supply to Tripoli.
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This is a message I just received from someone currently on a business trip in Libya:
“I am in Tripoli right now.
They have a daily 9-hour interruption of electricity due to fuel and wire cable shortage.
Everyone’s got a generator.”
we must take this agreement seriuosly and do not make jokes about it the PM has vast experience with such agreements in favour of our country if I remember well his first agreement of this kind was made within few days of getting the PL leadership
and we realy saw the benefits
I’m sorry, are you being sarcastic or do you really mean what you said there?
Tajba gallettu – u kemm gbartu flus minghand Ghaddafi dak iz-zmien?
Mur tn*jjek.
With whom? About what? Can you be specific and try to ‘refresh’ your memory for the benefit of all others, please?
I saw the benefits yesterday and the day before…a 24-hour power cut in Gzira, where I live.
I hope you’re joking.
I hope you are just being sarcastic because you really cannot be serious.
News like this one and the ones published earlier on this website, should help us assess the rest of the agreement with the Libyan government.
Apparently, in addition to the agreement that Libya will sell to Malta oils at favourable prices but which is contingent on factors which at the moment seem to be out of the control of the Libyan government, the Maltese government has agreed to carry out oil exploration in sea territories that Malta has so far claimed to belong to it, but which are subject to international court disputes.
Konrad Shame on Him Mizzi told PBS that rather than carrying on with the disputes, which he said may take another 10 years, the Maltese government opted for collaboration with the Libyan authorities.
If my understanding of those facts is correct, I cannot understand why this news is not being examined in depth by the media and the Opposition for its implications on Malta’s rights as claimed so far.
Besides, my view is that Malta has compromised its titles for the short term political benefit of the Labour party which is in government, so that perhaps, during its term, it may claim to have extracted oil.
But besides this short term political gain, it is not yet clear if in doing so Malta may be entangling ifself in the internal conflicts within Libya, its internal power struggles, terrorism, lawlessness and violence.
Who exactly is, or will be, in control of Libya’s energy resources and with which political faction will Malta be dealing in the next few months, years, in Libya? What’s the risk that the Malta government finds itself dealing with Al Qaeda?
I suspect that considering the present circumstances and political situation in Libya, it is going to be hard for the Maltese government to find any serious interest in investment in joint exploration with Libya. The current production problems give credibility to this point.
It seems that the agreement announced by Joseph Muscat is only of propaganda value and is not worth the piece of paper it is written on.
TRIPOLI MAIN AIRPORT IS CLOSED DUE TO FIGHTING.
AIRLINES URGED TO USE OTHER AIRPORT.
Joseph Miscat and his whole government are a sad joke, and the gullibility of the greater part of the electorate is second to none.
What next, I wonder?
As a regular visitor to Tripoli, I confirm daily power cuts are as common as sand inTripoli.
A very important detail regarding the agreement reached between the Maltese and Libyan government, which the Maltese media did not report but the Libya Herald did, is that Libya is to start supplying us at favorable rates only when the Libyan oil production gets stable and normal production reached again. In other words – never.
Joseph must be tearing his hair (whatever is left of it) over such news which makes an ‘oil deal at preferential rates’ from Libya no more than pie in the sky.
Gallettu, this is no joke but facts about what is happening in Libya which at the moment has no fuel for its own domestic consumption. So how can it supply others?
Remember when Anglu Farrugia was on TV before the elections, when there was that debate between him and Simon Busutill? I do.
I remember it well. Not just because he made an ass of himself. It was because of those flimsy clip-art-esque charts he produced while trying to distract everyone with that weird smile of his.
I remember thinking, “There is no way anyone is going to trust this guy after showing those bits of paper”. To which someone told me, “Those bits of paper are going to make him very popular with his supporters because they like that sort of thing.”
And it’s true, they did.
I think that what we are seeing with this oil deal is a mixture of that attitude and one of the many flaws of the “think positive” social conditioning.
This oil deal, like those flow charts, exists only on paper and have absolutely no intrinsic value, in the sense that they do no represent anything real or tangible. “Look we got an oil deal”, they shout. No they didn’t, they got an oil deal for no oil. Three cheers for them then.
But it gets worse. Their “Think positive” mechanism is going to tell them not to be so negative about it all. “Look, we got the deal, it’s right here in front of your eyes.” they insist. “But there is no oil”, you will say only to be met by the “Stop being so negative”.
Yes, because being positive is about ticking boxes. It’s about showing rather than actually having, a fact I find so interesting seeing as “The Secret” philosophy is about encouraging what scientists call “Synthetic Happiness” which is not the same as ” Natural Happiness”- that feeling you get when you get what you want.
So here is a question I would like answered. Since getting oil from Libya is getting less and less probable, has the Prime Minister signed another agreement equally as good with a country that actually has oil, lest we end up with no oil and forced to buy oil in the last minute and probably in such a fit of desperation that we would have to say yes to any price?
Very well said…make sense
Cheap, cheap and so very cheap. Typical of Muscat.