Keeb, a professor of electrical engineering, will have to rein in the armed militias that sprang up in each town to overthrow Gaddafi and reconcile those remaining loyal to the old rule while brokering a new system to govern the country.

The NTC has promised to hold elections for a national assembly after eight months. The assembly will then spend a year drawing up a constitution ahead of parliamentary elections.

"This transition period has its own challenges. One thing we will be doing is working very closely with the NTC and listening to the Libyan people," Keeb said after 26 of the 51 NTC members elected him for the post in Tripoli on October 31.

An academic and a businessman, Keeb has spent much of his life outside Libya, studying in the United States before taking up academic posts in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The prime minister said he expected to choose his cabinet ministers within two weeks.

Keeb did not set out any specific plans for the coming months, but said that worries over foreign oil contracts were unfounded. "