Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown analysts believe President Bush might allow the expiration next year of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which has prohibited U.S. companies from doing business with these OPEC members for most of the past 20 years. The law also calls for penalties against non-U.S. firms that do business with these countries, if they also do business in the U.S. Whether the rules are continued next year by executive order will affect U.S.-based Amerada Hess Corp.'s acquisition of U.K.-based Lasmo Plc. The latter has interests in both Iran and Libya. Amerada will have to dispose of the Middle Eastern and North African assets, if it cannot get around the law. The most convenient situation would be U.S. discontinuance of the rules. Royal Dutch/Shell and TotalFinaElf SA already have Iranian interests; BP Plc and several Japanese firms are negotiating deals, according to the DBAB analysts. Iran hopes to increase its current oil production capacity to 4.75 million barrels per day, from 3.75 million now. Libya's current capacity is 1.55 million barrels per day and the DBAB analysts don't see that increasing significantly during the next five years. The state-owned Agoco, Waha, Sirte and Zueitina firms produce about two-thirds of current output. Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol-YPF produce most of the rest. "Realizing that Libya needs foreign investment, the regime has tried to change the country's terrorist image," the analysts report. Additional volumes are expected from Lasmo's Elephant field (140,000 barrels per day) and Repsol-YPF's El Sharara (180,000). "Although these additions are high, it will be a struggle to offset declines at mature fields. Further volumes will depend on the improvement of upstream terms, as well as an end to U.S. and U.N. sanctions," the analysts add

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