BENGHAZI: Libyan rebels have penned a deal with Qatar to market their crude oil abroad in exchange for food, medicine and fuel, a top official in the transitional government said Friday.
"The Qatar government agreed, the agreement is signed, that they will market crude oil for us," Ali al-Tarhoni, a senior member of the Transitional National Council who is in charge of oil and finance, told reporters.
He said that under a "barter" deal aimed at circumventing international sanctions, Qatar would market the oil and use the proceeds to purchase humanitarian supplies for the rebels.
He added that the deal did not concern the major oil terminals at Ras Lanuf and surrounding villages, which the rebels have twice seized and lost in battles with Kadhafi's forces.
The oil will instead come from the Sarir oil field in the country's remote southeast, which he insisted was under the firm control of the revolutionaries.
He said the rebels would be able to export one million barrels a week once they acquired the vessels to transport it.
"The only delay is finding the vessels... That is the only obstacle," he said.
Last Sunday, Tarhoni said the rebels, who were at th time in control of all the country's eastern oil facilities, expected to begin exporting crude "in less than a week".
"We are producing about 100,000 to 130,000 barrels a day, we can easily up that to about 300,000 a day," he told a news conference.
He said the rebel government had agreed an oil contract with Qatar, which would market the crude, and that he expected exports to begin in "less than a week."
Tarhoni said he had signed the contract with Qatar recently and that the deal would help ensure "access to liquidity in terms of foreign denominated currency".
"We contacted the oil company of Qatar and they agreed to take all the oil we export and market that oil for us," he said.
"We have an escrow account... and the money will be deposited in this account, and this way there is no middle man and we know where the money is going."
A spokesman for Qatar Petroleum, the tiny resource-rich nation's public oil company, declined to confirm the deal.
Libya's oil exports, ordinarily about 1.7 million barrels a day, have ground to a halt since the unrest began.
While the exports meet only two percent of worldwide demand, Libya produces much prized "sweet," low-sulphur crude, which is easy and cheap to refine into petrol.
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