Tunisia to offer oil licences, denies Shell plans exit
- "Shell informed us that it has no intention to leave the country and to sell its assets," the ministry's energy director Rached Ben Dali said at a news conference alongside Marzouki.
TUNIS: Tunisia's Energy Ministry said on Thursday it would offer four exploration licences this year and denied that Royal Dutch Shell aimed to leave the country.
Senior ministry official Rania Marzouki said the new licences would bring $80 million of investment and bolster production, which she put at 3.4 million tonnes of oil equivalent last year, half what it was in 2010.
Industry sources last week told Reuters that Shell had hired investment bank Rothschild & Co. to sell its Tunisian assets, while Italy's Eni had hired Lazard to run its own sale and Austria's OMV also planned to sell up.
"Shell informed us that it has no intention to leave the country and to sell its assets," the ministry's energy director Rached Ben Dali said at a news conference alongside Marzouki.
He said Eni's sale was prompted by the company's strategy of leaving countries with low production, not by any frustration at Tunisia's regulatory or political environment.
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