Libya wants to raise its oil output capacity by a third by overhauling old fields and opening up new ones, but analysts point out that this will take both time and foreign investment - and may be hard to achieve before the Opec member's 2009 target.
North Africa's leading oil producer is hoping its pledge late last year to renounce banned weapons programmes, and subsequent warmer relations with the West, will nurture new energy investment.
On Thursday Libya and oil major Royal Dutch/Shell signed an industrial partnership deal, which British officials said could soon lead to a $200 million natural gas project.
Libya's state-owned National Oil Corporation is aiming at oil production of 2.1 million barrels a day (bpd) in 2009 with a five-year investment plan drawing in at least $3 billion.
Libya puts its capacity now at 1.75 million bpd, although analysts say the figure is more like 1.6 million, including new oil due from two large projects - Eni's Wafa and Elephant fields - that will add 250,000 bpd by 2006.
Analysts are sceptical about the scope for quick capacity gains.
"There is 500,000 barrels per day plus to go from here, and there is a lot of uncertainty in that," said Jerry Kepes, managing director for upstream at consultants PFC Energy in the US
"That 2.1 million bpd number is possible, but there is a lot of uncertainty in over exactly where that is going to come from."
OUTPUT PUSH: Libya's push on output follows stagnation in the late 1980s and 1990s, when production capacity struggled to get over 1.5 million bpd, down from actual production of more than three million bpd in 1970.
It is also trying to build its oil reserves to back its case for a higher share of Opec's total output ceiling. In January, Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem said Libya would ask for an expanded production quota.
Libya currently has an Opec quota of 1.31 million bpd, falling to 1.26 million bpd from April 1.
NOC said in March that its reserves had grown to 38 billion barrels, from a last reported figure of 29.5 billion - as seen in BP's statistical review from 2003.
Its five-year upstream development plan calls for $300 million of seismic survey work, 100 exploration wells, and 686 development wells, and it says $10 billion would be needed in the event of oil and gas discoveries.
"That is going to be tough to achieve, unless the big majors come in," upstream consultants IHS Energy said.
Shell's deal will put it alongside Italy's Eni, Spain's Repsol and Austria's OMV, among the players already active in Libya's upstream sector.
Last year NOC signed deals for three sets of six exploration blocks with three consortia. Repsol/Woodside, Repsol/OMV and German firm RWE-Dea, which together are committed to upstream spending of nearly $250 million in the agreements.
To cap these deals, Libya is also planning a new bidding round to offer further exploration acreage some time in 2004.
ADDITIONAL OIL RECOVERY: In addition to encouraging wildcat drilling, Libya also wants to redevelop existing fields.
It has formed a negotiating committee to select fields that will attract international investors, and says those fields proposed so far have an average recovery factor of 27 percent, but will require measures such as infill drilling and water flooding.
Libya is hoping that the United States will soon lift sanctions that prevent US companies operating in the country, and that they will return, bringing with them investment funds to redevelop their old concessions.
The so-called Oasis Group - Conoco (ConocoPhillips) Amerada Hess and Marathon Oil, produced 850,000 bpd in 1986 and are expected to lead the US return to Libya.
In addition Occidental Petroleum has assets frozen that produced 170,000 bpd in 1986. Last week Occidental chairman Ray Irani became the first senior US oil executive to visit Tripoli in years. He said the firm planned to reopen an office as soon as possible.
Again, analysts are sceptical that there is massive appetite for the big investments needed to boost production quickly.
While oil companies will look eagerly into the new opportunities in Libya, many have doubts about the prospects for major field discovery, and little should be expected from the field redevelopment plans, analysts say for someone to push the on button."
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