Aljamahiria - Role of British FM in Libya Oil Deal by Private Company Questioned / 17.11.2011

October 2011, Heritage Oil announced the $20 million deal to take over Sahara Oil, a Libyan oil services company based in Benghazi. Now British foreign secretary William Hague is facing questions over his role in the deal in Libya.
It has emerged that in March, during the conflict in Libya, Haif had a private meeting with a representative of said company and exchanged letters with an aide over the past few months.
At the time, the company, that is run by a Conservative Party donor was seeking inroads into Libya, and the British daily The Telegraph has revealed that while the conflict was raging in Libya, Hague had a meeting in the Carlton club in London with met Mr Christian Sweeting, a representative of Heritage Oil.

It said he was also embroiled in controversy earlier this year when The Telegraph disclosed that Mr Hague had personally intervened in a £175 million tax dispute between Heritage Oil, its partner Tullow Oil and the Ugandan government.

Then in October, the company was awarded the oil deal in Libya which it believes will provide it with a foothold in the region.

Mr Hague did not list the Carlton Club meeting with Mr Sweeting - who was a Conservative candidate in 2001, when Mr Hague was leader of the Conservative party - in his register of meetings with external organisations.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office told the newspaper that Mr Hague and Mr Sweeting had met “briefly” at an event, which is why the encounter was not disclosed in the official records.

“The foreign secretary’s exchange with Mr Sweeting was entirely proper,” the spokesman said. The foreign office also insisted that Mr Hague had not discussed the business deal in correspondence with Mr Sweeting.

Referring to Mr Buckingham, the newspaper said he began making his fortune, which has been estimated at £500 million, by running private security companies in Africa, and developed Heritage Oil from a small operation into a company that rejected a $1.9 billion takeover bid earlier this year.

Heritage Oil is known for working in unstable countries and currently has operations in Iraq, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The disclosure by The Telegraph comes amid mounting scrutiny of the Western rush to secure deals from the new Libyan government.

It said that the British government has promoted the interests of British business in post-war Libya, but questions have repeatedly been raised about how far ministers should go in lobbying for commercial interests.

Source: Tripoli Post