EU, oil companies begin evacuations from Libya

European countries sent planes and ferries to Libya on Monday to evacuate their citizens, and some international oil and gas companies pulled their foreign staff out and suspended operations, as anti-government protests spread to Tripoli for the first time.

Many countries had already urged their citizens to avoid nonessential travel to Libya or recommended that those already there leave on commercial flights. But as the bloody protests moved to Libya's capital countries and companies alike stepped up their contingency plans.

Oil companies, including Italy's Eni, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, U.K.-based BP and Germany's Wintershall, a subsidiary of BASF, were evacuating their expat workers or their families or both. BP and Wintershall said they were temporarily suspending operations; Eni said production continued normally.

Libya is one of the world's biggest oil producers and has the largest proven oil reserves in the whole of Africa. Eni, Italy's largest natural gas and oil company, is the biggest oil company operating in Libya, where it has at least six contracts alongside the Libyan state oil company.

Complete coverage: Anger in the Arab World

Portugal sent a C-130 plane to pick up its citizens and other EU nationals, and Turkey sent two ferries to fetch construction workers stranded by the unrest.

The EU said the bloc was preparing for the possible evacuation of European citizens. It does not have the power to require its member states to evacuate their citizens from a foreign country, but ministers can agree on coordinated action in some cases.

"We are very worried about the situation in Libya," Spain's foreign minister, Trinidad Jimenez, said at a regular monthly EU ministerial meeting in Brussels that was largely focused on the unrest across the Middle East. "At the same time, we are coordinating the possible evacuation of EU citizens from Libya."

EU countries planned a teleconference Monday afternoon to discuss flights out of Libya, Finnish Foreign Ministry spokesman Teemu Turunen said.

Turkey was sending two ferries to Libya to evacuate Turks — mostly construction workers. The decision came hours after authorities at the airport in Benghazi, the country's second largest city and a center of the protests, would not allow a Turkish Airlines plane to land, forcing it to circle the airport and then return to Istanbul.

Turkish Foreign Trade Minister Zafer Caglayan said four planes were on standby, while Turkey is also considering evacuating some of its citizens by land, through Egypt. Turkey began evacuating its citizens after several Turkish construction sites around Benghazi were attacked and looted by protesters on Friday.

Austria said a military plane on standby in Malta since Sunday was being mobilized to evacuate Austrians and other foreigners out of Tripoli. They will be flown to Valletta, the Maltese capital, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal.

Serbia's foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, said his country is preparing a plane to be sent to Libya, and that between 500 and 700 Serbian citizens have contacted the embassy in Tripoli. Meanwhile, a group of some 50 Serb construction workers wrote in an e-mail to media that they were attacked by a group of armed men and were cut off at a camp on the Mediterranean.

Italy's Eni gas and oil company said it was evacuating nonessential personnel and family members of expatriate workers in Libya "as already scheduled following the early closure of schools in the country."

"At the moment, no problems at plants and operational facilities have been reported. The company's production continues as normal, with no effects on operations," Eni said, adding that it was reinforcing security measures for remaining employees and plants.

Wintershall said it was closing down its oil operations in Libya "given the current developments" and was in the process of evacuating its 130 international staff members to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Wintershall operates eight onshore oil fields in the Libyan desert, about 1,000 kilometers southeast of Tripoli, producing 100,000 barrels of oil a day.

"Safety is our company priority," said spokesman Stefan Leunig.

He said the company's office in Tripoli would be shut down, but that a "handful" of international staff members would remain on hand in the country for the time being. Wintershall has a total of about 400 employees in Libya, mostly local nationals.

BP suspended some of its operations and is planning to take out its nonessential staff and their families Monday and Tuesday, spokesman David Nicholas said. BP has about 140 staff members in Libya, about 40 of whom are expats.

The company is in the early stages of exploration in Libya. BP's onshore drilling preparations have been suspended in light of the protests, while other activities are unaffected, the spokesman said.

Shell temporarily relocated the families of expat staff out of Libya, spokeswoman Kirsten Smart said. She declined to give further details of the number of employees the company has in Libya or how many people were evacuated.

Shell's operations in Libya, like those of BP, are limited to exploration.

Norway-based Statoil said it is pulling a "handful" of expatriate workers out of its office in Tripoli, and Austria's OMV oil and gas company was pulling out 11 of its 15 Libya-based expatriates and their families.

Poland's state gas monopoly PGNiG said it is evacuating 30 employees.

German industrial giant Siemens AG said it was evacuating its some 100 international employees. Siemens' three main divisions — industry, energy and health care — are active in Libya with annual revenue of about euro160 million ($220 million), a spokesman said.

Russia's state rail monopoly said it was evacuating its 204 employees who are building a 550-kilometer (340-mile) coastal railroad from Sirt to Benghazi.

The Polish consul general in Tripoli, Stanislaw Gulinski, said there are about 500 Poles in Libya, and that the Polish government plans to organize evacuations for them. Speaking by phone on Polish station TVN24, he noted, however, that many of the Poles there have indicated they do not want to leave. Many are Polish women married to Libyans who do not want to be separated from their families, he said.