This week, French and U.S. officials convened a quiet meeting in Paris between representatives of Libya’s rival power centers: figures close to Abdulhamid Dbeibah, the Tripoli-based prime minister whose authority rests on control of state finances, and figures aligned with Khalifa Haftar, the eastern commander whose power derives from armed force and oil leverage.
Publicly, the talks were about strengthening Libya’s “institutions” (Central Bank, the NOC, and budget oversight bodies). In practice, they’re about divvying up the spoils to maintain the rivalry status quo. For Dbeibah’s camp, institutional control means preserving dominance over the Central Bank, the FX window, and spending approvals that fund militias, contracts, and patronage networks in western Libya. For Haftar’s camp, it means securing tolerated access to oil value outside that system, through crude-in-kind arrangements, parallel commercial channels, and Tripoli’s willingness to avoid enforcement when eastern networks divert or pressure flows.
These arrangements are tolerated on both sides as long as they remain roughly balanced (“strengthening institutions). When Tripoli tightens access to FX, audits spending, or slows budget releases, the east applies pressure through oil production or export threats. When eastern networks expand off-books crude flows too far, Tripoli responds through legal action, payment freezes, or international exposure.
Meetings like the one in Paris are where all…
This week, French and U.S. officials convened a quiet meeting in Paris between representatives of Libya’s rival power centers: figures close to Abdulhamid Dbeibah, the Tripoli-based prime minister whose authority rests on control of state finances, and figures aligned with Khalifa Haftar, the eastern commander whose power derives from armed force and oil leverage.
Publicly, the talks were about strengthening Libya’s “institutions” (Central Bank, the NOC, and budget oversight bodies). In practice, they’re about divvying up the spoils to maintain the rivalry status quo. For Dbeibah’s camp, institutional control means preserving dominance over the Central Bank, the FX window, and spending approvals that fund militias, contracts, and patronage networks in western Libya. For Haftar’s camp, it means securing tolerated access to oil value outside that system, through crude-in-kind arrangements, parallel commercial channels, and Tripoli’s willingness to avoid enforcement when eastern networks divert or pressure flows.
These arrangements are tolerated on both sides as long as they remain roughly balanced (“strengthening institutions). When Tripoli tightens access to FX, audits spending, or slows budget releases, the east applies pressure through oil production or export threats. When eastern networks expand off-books crude flows too far, Tripoli responds through legal action, payment freezes, or international exposure.
Meetings like the one in Paris are where all of this is informally tweaked in order to preserve the status quo, which is all the stability international oil companies need to return to this venue.
Recent weeks have seen major moves to bring IOcs back into Libya’s upstream sector, with the NOC signing a long-term development agreement at Waha with TotalEnergies and ConocoPhillips that runs for roughly 25 years and commits more than $20B to rehabilitating fields, drilling new wells, and lifting production capacity substantially from current levels. Chevron has also signed an MoU with the NOC, marking its return to Libya after more than a decade. And we’re also looking at preparations for Libya’s first upstream licensing round in more than 17 years, with multiple onshore and offshore blocks up for grabs. All of it will raise the stakes for Libya’s rival power centers to keep production uninterrupted and institutional arrangements intact.
