Libya is rated of the world's top five destinations for oil and gas exploration, with discovered resources of more than 43 billion barrels of oil and 46 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Its undiscovered potential is estimated at 35 billion barrels of oil and 12 trillion cubic feet of gas and 12 of the country's oil fields have reserves of one billion barrels or more.

Many European companies are now exploring for and producing oil and gas in Libya , with recent commercial finds of between 50 million to five billion barrels.

In May 2003, Repsol- YPF and OMV ( Austria ) announced a A$114 million exploration program over six blocks in Libya and in September 2003, Total ( France ) and wintershall ( Germany ) announced the start of oil production from the

Al-Jurf block, 100km offshore Libya . Total is involved in joint ventures in Libya with daily oil production of about 240,000 barrels a day.

Woodside is operating in two basins that have high prospectively and will provide a suite of prospects and leads that will re-supply our drilling portfolio in 2005-08.

Sirte Basin

New Ventures' Julia Davies is coordinating activity in the famous Sirte Basin , the most prolific oil-producing basin in North Africa which contains all of Libya 's major fields.

Julia joined Woodside in 2000 after 16 years in the international oil industry. She has worked as a geologist and an interpreter in many parts of the world, including the North Sea, South East Asia, South America and North Africa .

Julia has been a regular visitor to Libya over the last 31 /2 years, often staying several weeks at a time.

"With onshore and offshore production areas, the Sirte basin ranks 15 th among the world's petroleum provinces – it has more than 23 fields with more than 100 million barrels of oil equivalent, and 16 giant fields with more than 500 million barrels of oil equivalent," she says.

Woodside's five blocks are onshore throughout the sirte basin, and total about 11,000km 2 . Most of the blocks are within 900km south-east of the capital, Tripoli , and are surrounded by highly productive, major oil fields.

Murzuq Basin

As coordinator of the Murzuq basin project, peter Van Loevezijn brings to Woodside an extensive international in the interpretation of subsurface seismic data.

His travels have taken him to many parts of the world, including Columbia and Syria and, with six years of Woodside experience under his belt, he is looking forward to making the best of the opportunities our Murzuq basin prospect has to offer.

The Murzuq basin is in western Libya about 600km south-west of Tripoli and supplies about 5% of Libya 's current oil production.

Exploration efforts started in this lightly- explored region 1957 and 60 exploratory wells have been drilled to date, resulting in more than 20 discoveries totaling four billion barrels of oil.

Recent exploration- especially the major discovery and initial development of the giant Elephant field 150km south of prospect NC 210 – has greatly increased interest for the area's potential.

Many petroleum geologists and companies now believe the basin is an exciting frontier exploration region which could significantly contribute to Europe 's energy need in the decades ahead.

Permit NC210, in the north-west of the basin bordering Algeria , covers about 10,000km2 and is about 180km from the wafa gas field in the north and a similar distance from the El Sharara oil pipeline, operated by Repsol – YPF, in the east. The Wafa field is part of the Western Libya gas project which is under construction and will eventually export gas to Italy .

Under the terms of Woodside's agreement with the Libyan National Oil Corporation the joint venture will complete a three-year feasibility study for development options of field in the Murzuq basin identified as having gas and liquids production potential.