Sirte Oil Company (SOC) () is an oil and gas company in

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

operating under the state-owned

National Oil Corporation The National Oil Corporation (NOC; ) is the national oil company of Libya. It dominates Libya's oil industry, along with a number of smaller subsidiaries, which combined account for the vast majority of the country's oil output. It is led by Fa ...

(NOC). The company is located in

Brega Brega , also known as ''Mersa Brega'' or ''Marsa al-Brega'' ( , i.e. "Brega Seaport"), is a complex of several smaller towns, industry installations and education establishments situated in Libya on the Gulf of Sidra, the most southerly point of ...

SOC’s operations include oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) and manufacturing.

Background

The company was initially known as

Esso Esso () is a trading name for ExxonMobil. Originally, the name was primarily used by its predecessor Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the name "Esso" (from the phon ...

Standard Libya Inc., the first company to discover commercial quantities of

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring u ...

in the

Zelten oil field The Zelten oil field (now known as the Nasser field) is located at the foot of the Zelten Mountains, about south of Brega in Concession 6. Zelten holds the title as the largest oil field in the Gulf of Sidra. The 229 wells in Zelten use a gas ...

. In 1981,

Exxon Exxon Mobil Corporation ( ) is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Founded as the largest direct successor of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, the modern company was form ...

(parent company of Esso Standard) withdrew their Libyan operations, after which Sirte Oil Company was formed as a NOC subsidiary. It was established to operate the former Esso Sirte installation like the Marsa el-Brega refinery. In 1986, SOC took over the assets of Grace Petroleum, one of the five US companies forced by the U.S. government to leave Libya. In 1991, SOC merged with the National Petrochemical Company, creating the Sirte Oil Company for Production, Manufacturing of Oil and Gas. Activities included oil refining,

liquefaction In materials science, liquefaction is a process that generates a liquid from a solid or a gas or that generates a non-liquid phase which behaves in accordance with fluid dynamics. It occurs both naturally and artificially. As an example of t ...

of natural gas and

petrochemicals Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable so ...

(

methanol Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical compound and the simplest aliphatic Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with the chemical formula (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often ab ...

ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula, formula . A Binary compounds of hydrogen, stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pu ...

and

urea Urea, also called carbamide (because it is a diamide of carbonic acid), is an organic compound with chemical formula . This amide has two Amine, amino groups (–) joined by a carbonyl functional group (–C(=O)–). It is thus the simplest am ...

). In 2000, SOC reportedly made a 13-billion-cubic-meter-per-year natural gas discovery in the Sirte Basin (Africa Energy Intelligence, 2000a, b). In 2005 SOC signed a $643 million contract with

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

to restore the Marsa el Brega LNG. The complex was damaged after political unrest after the Libyan civil war in 2011 and is out of operation today. SOC operates the Raguba field in the central part of the Sirte Basin. The field is connected by pipeline to the main line between the Nasser field, one of the largest in Libya, and Brega. As of 2005, besides Nasser, SOC was in charge of two other gas fields - Attahadi and Assumud - plus the Marsa el-Brega

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

(LNG) plant. The LNG plant at Brega processed about 900 million cubic meters per year, or about 700,000 metric tons per year, of natural gas, as of 2005. In 2018 SOC announced the exploration and production of oil and gas in the Sahl field, after they had to stop for four years because of local security problems. In 2019 SOC announced would conduct

corrosion Corrosion is a natural process that converts a refined metal into a more chemically stable oxide. It is the gradual deterioration of materials (usually a metal) by chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Corrosion engine ...

control chemical field trials in 2020 for its gas production facilities.

Production Overview

*Crude Oil Storage: The Tank Farm includes sixteen tanks. The design capacity of each individual tank is . *Refinery: Capacity for processing . The products are primarily used to satisfy domestic demand. The production slate includes: (1) gasoline; (2)

kerosene Kerosene, or paraffin, is a combustibility, combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in Aviation fuel, aviation as well as households. Its name derives from the Greek (''kērós'') meaning " ...

jet fuel Jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF, also abbreviated avtur) is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by Gas turbine, gas-turbine engines. It is colorless to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for ...

( Jet A):

diesel oil Diesel fuel, also called diesel oil, heavy oil (historically) or simply diesel, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a re ...

(ADO):

naphtha Naphtha (, recorded as less common or nonstandard in all dictionaries: ) is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture. Generally, it is a fraction of crude oil, but it can also be produced from natural-gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and ...

: and heavy fuel oil (HFO).

SOC Petrochemical Complex

SOC's petrochemical complex is located near Brega. It consists of six plants: The combined production capacity for the three products is 6,950 mtpd. All products are marketed by the Brega Marketing Company. *Methanol plants (2): each having a capacity of 1,000 mtpd (1978 and 1985) *Ammonia plants (2): one having a capacity of 1,000 mtpd and other with a capacity of 1,200 mtpd (1978 and 1983) *Urea plants (2): one having a capacity of 1,000 mtpd and another with a capacity of 1,750 mtpd (1981 and 1984). *Methanol Production: Uses natural gas from SOC’s gas fields for raw material. *Ammonia Production: SOC’s ammonia-producing plant first converts natural gas (i.e. methane) into

gaseous hydrogen Gas is a state of matter that has neither a fixed volume nor a fixed shape and is a compressible fluid. A ''pure gas'' is made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon) or molecules of either a single type of atom ( elements such as ...

. Starting with a natural gas feedstock, the first step in the process entails removal of

sulfur Sulfur ( American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphur ( Commonwealth spelling) is a chemical element; it has symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms ...

compounds from the feedstock, because sulfur deactivates the catalysts used in subsequent steps. Ammonia is produced in liquid form at a temperature of -33 °C. *Urea Production: Urea is manufactured from ammonia, which comes from SOC’s two ammonia plants.

SOC Brega Port, Marine and Utility Facilities

Brega port exports SOC's oil,

gas and petrochemical products. The port comprises a single and double berthing docks with various depths, cargo docks, jetting and mooring for SOC products.

Fields

SOC has the following fields: *Oil and Associated Gas Fields **Nasser (Zelten) **Raguba **Lehib (Dor Marada) **Jebel **Wadi **Ralah **Arshad **Ain Jerbi **Al Wafa *Non-Associated Gas Fields **Hateiba **Sahl **Assamoud **Meghil **Sorrah **Attahaddy

Notes

External links

{{Portal, Libya, Energy
Official website
Oil and gas companies of Libya

Non-renewable resource companies established in 1981 Tripolitania Government-owned companies of Libya