Despite initial euphoria that the imminent fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime would trigger an oil shuffle and quick output recovery, more cautious-and realistic-indications are surfacing even from rebels, especially if history is a judge.

It would be hard to tell from readings into an apparent diplomatic and corporate scramble to divvy up Libya’s oil bounty. Some have anticipated output recovery within months and a re-partition in which rebel friendly NATO countries like France and the UK will profit at the expense of less supportive ones like China and Russia.

But expect very little changes any time soon.

To begin with, it is all together uncertain how long it will take Libya to offer enough security and stability for foreign companies to return. While a period of months is the working timeframe, it could be years.

Indeed, the process to secure Libya will only increase once the civil war ends with Gaddafi’s defeat. And the outcome will depend on the emerging regime’s ability to consolidate military and political power and on institutional and infrastructural reconstruction advancing quickly.

Libya’s National Transition Council will not just struggle to unite over 140 tribes in the country, but even its own rebel coalition of dozens of autonomous, loosely tied and well-armed victorious parties that will ultimately compete for power under a post-Gaddafi regime. Any new government will first have to secure its legitimacy internally to wield it externally.

But even with enough security in place, and assuming, as early reports indicate, that infrastructure has not been seriously damaged, the priority of any government will be to recover pre-war output of 1.6 million barrels per day as quickly as possible, and that will almost certainly mean existing contracts will have to be honored, at least in the short term.

Those who were there with Gaddafi will likely be first in line to lead a revamp of Libya’s oil industry, even if new players will eventually benefit during a lengthy reconstruction process from juicy contracts in all sectors of the economy, underwritten with oil production.

“Libya has been open for foreign investors for decades. They are not nationalistic, despite sanctions. They are tough negotiators, but not anti-foreign. There will be continuity. They will do the same thing. But I doubt that they will be so political to allow American companies, but not Chinese and Russian,” said Manouchehr Takin, senior upstream oil analyst with the Centre for Global Energy Studies and a former veteran of OPEC’s secretariat.

“Companies that had invested there and had to leave in an emergency would like to return as soon as possible to generate revenue. That is a reasonable assumption, as soon as security situation improves regardless of who the government is. The government is inviting them to return because there is a dire need for cash,” Takin said.

A spokesman for the rebel oil company had initially suggested they would reward French, Italian, and British companies, but not Chinese and Russian, but the rebels have since moved to reassure not just previous investors, but future ones.

“The contracts in the oil fields are absolutely sacrosanct,” Ahmed Jehani, the head of the National Transitional Council's (NTC) reconstruction effort, said in Dubai this week. “All lawful contracts will be honoured ... There's no question of revoking any contract.”

Jehani also said Libya welcomed Chinese investment and aid, downplaying initial indications that Russia and China would be punished for their lukewarm support to the rebel cause.

Libya needs all the money it can get–which is why donors are offering reconstruction money and countries are releasing frozen assets even before UN sanctions are lifted-to empower the transitional government to consolidate power.

Oil prices are not factoring in any significant short term increase in Libyan output. In fact, they have mostly recovered over the past week after dropping with initial news of Tripoli’s rebel victory. And the fluctuations remain driven by global economic concerns.

Jehani said the new government hopes to recover its production in the next 12 months, but that is optimistic. The IEA expects years, a Reuters poll of 20 analysts sees up to two years, Wood Mackenzie estimated 36 months, and for IHS it will be at least 18 months in the most optimistic scenario. But that will ultimately depend on politics.

And the biggest operators will need to pick up where they left off. Those include ENI, Repsol, Wintershall, OMV, Total, ConocoPhillips, Marathon, StatoilHydro, and others, which in turn rely heavily on Chinese service companies.

NATO allies, including those who led the military efforts, will be more than happy to see stability and continuity, especially because many depend directly on sweet Libyan oil crude. Of the big countries, Italy relies on Libya for 22 percent of its oil imports in 2010, France for 16 percent, and Spain for 12 percent. Other smaller heavily dependent countries are Austria for 21 percent, Ireland for 23 percent, and Switzerland for 19 percent, according to the IEA.

History teaches patience

Recovering oil production after a prolonged period of political or military instability has never been a quick process because politics always gets in the way. Oil production is often the first victim of political purges, of government inability to pass a legal framework required for companies to operate, or of persistent violence in anarchic states that result from post-war countries.

Libya, like any other country, will deal with its own circumstances, but more usually than not, political instability is the biggest handicap when it comes to oil production.

Iraq is a recent example. Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003 and it took nearly six years for foreign companies to return. Of course, Libya’s case is different. The rebels will not dissolve the army or government bureaucracies, but even under Gaddafi there was an institutional vacuum that the new government will have to build from scratch.

Libya’s energy infrastructure was broadly spared, early reports indicate, unlike Iraq where most was damaged and what remained was obsolete after over a decade of sanctions. And there is no need for a new oil legal framework.

But even after everything lined up in Iraq and foreign companies flooded the country with cash and expertise, production levels in Iraq have not recovered from pre-war levels and remain far from potential.

Afghanistan, without oil, is also a good example. Stabilizing a clan-based society, despite the military and financial support of global powers, has proved impossible. Post-revolutionary governments of Nicaragua, Somalia, Sudan, to name a few, are still far from stability.

Kuwait has not recovered production levels from before the Iraqi invasion in 1990, and that’s without any foreign or internal conflict and cash to spare. Lack of political agreement over inviting foreign firms is to blame in this case.

Venezuela is far from recovering production from before the crippling 2003 strike in the oil company that ended with a massive purge of tens of thousands of employees, including a big part of the managers.

So when it comes to Libya, it’s not just too early to celebrate a quick return of oil production, it’s naïve.