Oct 26, 2009
LONDON/RABAT (Reuters) - Shokri Ghanem has been reinstated as chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp., an unexpected return to the top oil post in the OPEC member-nation only weeks after he left the position.

"Reinstated, and no other comment," Ghanem told Reuters on Monday. He left the post in September for reasons that were never made clear and had been replaced provisionally with Ali Seghir Mohamed Saleh.

The reappointment of Ghanem, 67, will be welcomed by investors in the oil industry of Libya, home to Africa's largest reserves, analysts said. Oil firms have viewed Ghanem as a reliable partner in an often unpredictable country.

"My gut feeling is this is a rebalancing over the vital oil sector to make sure there are more positive elements from the companies' and investors' point of view," said Samuel Ciszuk of IHS Global Insight.

"They got a lot of negative feedback from the recent changes."

A statement on the NOC website made it clear that Ghanem is backed by Saif al Islam, the powerful son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

"Doctor Engineer Saif al Islam Muammar Gaddafi visited NOC headquarters on Sunday when he held a meeting with (Prime Minister) Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi and Shokri Ghanem, Chairman of NOC, during which they discussed issues related to oil sector," it said.

Ghanem's reappointment was unexpected. Usually the head of Libya's delegation to meetings of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, he had missed the group's last conference in September.[/font]