The start of deepwater drilling by UK-based BP in the Gulf of Sirte has been delayed once again. Originally scheduled for November, it was subsequently put back until December, and now BP states that it will take place "some time in 2011". The latest delay is due to a decision not to use the drilling platform that was originally slated for the operation; instead BP is now waiting on the delivery of a second rig, which is currently being prepared in the Gulf of Mexico. The decision may prove costly for BP; the owners of the original rig, Noble Corporation (US), have initiated arbitration proceedings against both BP and Exxon (US), to whom the rig had originally been contracted, but who had then transferred it to BP.

It is also a delay that Libya could do without. Despite a few small discoveries in recent months (three discoveries were made in December alone), Libya's oil ambitions have failed to live up to expectation and during 2010 a number of oil companies signalled their intention to halt operations. Furthermore, according to the chairman of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), Shokri Ghanem, Libya does not expect to issue any new oil concession licences in 2011. Currently, the bulk of Libya's oil output comes from onshore or shallow-water fields and the NOC is placing great store in exploration in the new deepwater fields in the Gulf of Sirte.

In this regard, BP is vital, since it is the only company that has so far committed to deepwater exploration in Libya. Although BP and others in the oil industry have drilled to much greater depths than those in the Gulf of Sirte, at 1,700m, some 200m deeper than the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, which suffered a blowout last year, BP is not taking any chances.

BP is also still facing ongoing ethical questions over its conduct in Libya. The furore in the US over BP's alleged involvement in the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, from a Scottish prison, has been reignited with the release by WikiLeaks, a whistle-blowing website, of government cables sent from the US embassy in Tripoli to the State Department in Washington. The cables suggest that Colonel Qadhafi threatened to cut all trade ties with the UK, warning of "enormous repercussions" if Mr Megrahi died in prison. Evidently BP would have been targeted should these repercussions have come to pass. In a cable sent in January 2009, the US ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, stated that "the consequences if Megrahi were to die in prison ... would be harsh, immediate and not easily remedied", adding that "the regime remains essentially thuggish in its approach".