 The discovery and exploitation of petroleum turned the vast, sparsely populated, impoverished country into an independently wealthy nation with potential for extensive development and thus constituted a major turning point in Libyan history.Libya's petroleum law, initially passed in 1955, was amended in 1961 and again in 1965 to increase the Libyan government's share of the revenues from oil.As development of petroleum resources progressed in the early 1960s, Libya launched its first Five-Year Plan, 1963-68.