NICOSIA (Bloomberg) -- Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi said crude prices need to rebound to $100 a barrel to prevent calls for the nationalization of foreign oil assets gaining ground.

“I hope that the price of oil rises again to $100 a barrel, that the calls for nationalization cease and this idea goes away,” said Qaddafi.
The state-run news service JANA said on Friday that Qaddafi spoke to students and teachers at Georgetown University, via a satellite link from Tripoli, on Jan. 21. “I don’t rule out that all oil exporting states could nationalize foreign oil companies just as quickly as the oil price has fallen,” he said.
Qaddafi, who turns 67 in June, said the price of oil is “unbearable” as it restricts the ability of oil-producing nations to pay for construction projects. “It’s a big problem because when prices rose to $150 a barrel, we signed contracts for infrastructure projects worth billions, and now the price dropped to near $30 a barrel.”
A Libyan state-owned newspaper, al-Jamahiriya, on Jan. 19 urged parliament to “claim back our oil from foreign companies.”
Libya’s top oil official on Thursday dismissed calls for nationalizing the assets of foreign oil companies that operate under production-sharing agreements with the state-run National Oil Corp. Eni Spa, Repsol YPF SA, Total SA, Occidental Petroleum Corp, Hess Corp., and Petro-Canada are among companies producing oil in Libya.
------------------Dismisses report
“No, it’s articles in the media only,” Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of National Oil, said in a telephone interview from Tripoli, when asked whether Libya, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, was considering taking over the assets.
Qaddafi in 2003 said state management of companies had failed and ordered the government to sell in full or part all of its state-run companies and banks, with the exception of National Oil.
Libya in 2007 began re-negotiating contracts with foreign oil companies to get a larger share of profit after prices increased, reducing their share of production to between 10 and 15 percent, from as much as 49 percent previously. It already revised contracts with Eni, Occidental, OMV AG, Petro-Canada, Repsol, Total, Wintershall AG and StatoilHydro ASA.