The Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) announced on Tuesday that it had lifted the state of “force majeure” on two oil sites blocked by an armed group, in the midst of a political crisis in Libya, and the resumption of production on one of them. ‘between them.
The state of “force majeure”, a measure that exempts the NOC from liability in the event of non-compliance with delivery contracts, has been lifted at the al-Sharara and al-Fil sites, a the company said in a statement.
The valves located in al-Riyayna, a locality about 140 km southwest of Tripoli, closed since Sunday by “an outlaw group”, were reopened overnight from Monday to Tuesday, “allowing the resumption pumping crude” from al-Sharara.
Technical difficulties due to the forced closure of the valves, however, prevent the reopening of the al-Fil field, located in the Morzouq basin 750 kilometers southwest of Tripoli, where production has not resumed.
The valves allowing the routing of crude from this site “could not be reopened due to acts of vandalism (…) requiring the intervention of a technical team” to carry out repairs, according to the press release.
Libya, which has the most abundant oil reserves in Africa, is trying to extricate itself from more than a decade of chaos since the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring.
A parallel government enthroned by the Libyan Parliament and which is trying to oust the executive in place in Tripoli was sworn in on Thursday, plunging the country into an institutional crisis reminiscent of the darkest hours of the civil war.
In recent years, the country’s economic activity, highly dependent on oil, has been hostage to divisions between rival camps. Some facilities have been destroyed during the conflicts, in addition to attacks or blockades by armed groups with wage or social demands.
The al-Sharara field, located about 900 km south of Tripoli, normally produces 315,000 barrels per day, out of a national production of more than 1.2 million barrels per day, against 1.5 to 1, 6 million before 2011.
It is managed by Akakus, a joint venture between NOC, the Spanish Repsol, the French Total, the Austrian OMV and the Norwegian Statoil.
The UN envoy and the US ambassador to Libya called on Monday for the lifting of the blockade “which deprives all Libyans of their main source of income”.
rb/ezz/awa