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Libya
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the Organization
of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries
Libya joined OPEC in 1962. Since the Revolution, Libya has played
a prominent role in negotiations with the multinational oil companies,
succeeding in significantly increasing the producers' revenues
from oil production. Libya also has lobbied, without notable success,
for the investment of petroleum profits in Third World nations
rather than in industrialized countries.
Libya has pursued the same general policies within the Organization
of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), of which it is
a founding member. In 1972 Libya recommended an amendment to the
OAPEC membership eligibility requirements, changing the stipulation
that oil be "the major and basic source" to merely "an important
source" of a country's national income. As a result of the adoption
of that amendment, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt joined OAPEC later in
the year. Libya has been an advocate of the use of oil as a political
weapon; it enthusiastically backed OAPEC's oil embargo of the
United States and the Netherlands, as well as the production reduction
affecting most other West European countries after the October
1973 War. Libya unsuccessfully resisted OAPEC's decision to remove
the embargo in March 1974.
Data as of 1987
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