Australia's Woodside Petroleum and Oil Search were also in the thick of the bidding.
Oil Search teamed with Petrobras of Brazil to successfully bid for an interest in Block 18, an offshore permit.
Oil Search’s initial work commitment includes the acquisition of 2,000 kilometres of 2-D seismic and 500 square kilometres of 3-D seismic, plus the drilling of one exploration well. Oil Search has a 305 stake with remaining 70% held by Petrobras.
Woodside set out to increase its Libyan acreage and ended up winning four offshore leases covering 37,300 square kilometers in water ranging from 100 to 1,500 meters deep.
The lease were won in conjunction with Occidental and United Arab Emirates' corporation Liwa.
Woodside has a 55% stake and is operator of the joint venture that won the four blocks. Occidental has a 35% interest and Liwa has 10%. Occidental had a total of nine successful bids, acquiring five licences in its own right.
The partners have budgeted more than $50 million for exploring their permits and have committed to a five-year program that will include seismic surveys and four wells, Woodside spokesman Rob Millhouse told EnergyReview.net.
The new blocks almost triple Woodside's Libyan acreage – increasing it from about 20,000 square kilometres to about 57,000 square kilometres – and add offshore leases to the company's existing onshore exploration, Millhouse said.
In December 2003 Woodside joined with Repsol YPF SA and Hellenic Petroleum SA to explore in the onshore Sirte and Murzuq Basins. The first of 13 wells planned by the Woodside, Repsol and Hellenic joint venture will be drilled later this year after seismic is completed.
Libya's latest government licensing programme attracted more than 120 oil companies worldwide but only 63 pre-qualified for the bidding round, according to BBC News.
ChevronTexaco will explore the Marzouk basin south of Tripoli. Amerada Hess was the other US company to win a licence. India Ltd and India Corp won the bid for the Syrte region.
Canada's Verenex Energy Inc, Algeria's Sonatrach and Medco Energy International of Indonesia. European oil and gas companies did not win any of the leases.
Another 40 blocks will be offered at a second auction in February.
Libya has Africa's largest oil reserves and is trying to attract massive foreign investment now that sanctions against Tripoli have been lifted.
Libya produces 1.6m barrels per day at present, but hopes to raise this to 2.1m bpd by the end of the decade.
Woodside has said it sees the whole of Africa as a new core region for the company. It has stakes - mostly offshore - in North, West and East Africa.
On Friday, the company announced that a wholly owned subsidiary, Woodside West Africa Pty Ltd, had successfully bid for 100% of an offshore exploration block in Liberia.
The area, known as Block 15, adjoins Blocks 16 and 17 which were won 100% by Repsol Exploracion SA in what was Liberia’s first offshore licensing round.
Repsol and Woodside each hold a 50% interest in two blocks immediately west of Liberia in Sierra Leone (SL-6 and SL-7). The two companies now have interests in five adjoining blocks across Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Woodside’s initial four-year work commitment includes geological and geophysical studies and the acquisition of 600km of two-dimensional seismic and 1600sqkm of three-dimensional seismic.
Woodside's first West African development, Chinguetti in Mauritania, is due to begin production in early 2006.
