Reason for war? Gaddafi wanted to nationalise oil
The Libyan leader proposed the nationalisation of U.S. oil companies, as well as those of UK, Germany, Spain, Norway, Canada and Italy in 2009. On January 25, 2009, Muammar Al Gaddafi announced that his country was studying the nationalisation of foreign companies due to lower oil prices. "The oil-exporting countries should opt for nationalisation because of the rapid fall in oil prices. We must put the issue on the table and discuss it seriously," said Gaddafi.
"Oil should be owned by the State at this time, so we could better control prices by the increase or decrease in production," said the Libyan leader.
These statements have worried the main foreign companies operating in Libya: Anglo-Dutch Shell, British Petroleum, U.S. ExxonMobil, Hess Corp., Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum and ConocoPhillips, the Spanish Repsol, Germany's Wintershall, Austria's OMV , Norway's Statoil, Eni and Canada's Petro Canada.
In 2008, the Libyan state oil company, National Oil, prepared a report on the subject in which officials suggested modifying the production-sharing agreements with foreign companies in order to increase state revenues. As a result of these contract changes, Libya gained 5.4 billion dollars in oil revenues.
On February 16, 2009, Gaddafi took a step further and called on Libyans to back his proposal to dismantle the government and to distribute the oil wealth directly to the 5 million inhabitants of the country.
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