Libya to Produce Million Barrels of Oil a Day This Month
Libya’s crude output will soon reach one million barrels a day after ports and fields reopened, a lawmaker said, adding the government is fully in control of its oil industry. Continue Reading
Libya suicide blasts leave 40 soldiers dead
The 2011 uprising gave rise to a patchwork of heavily armed and increasingly unruly militias [Reuters] A series of suicide bombings in Libya has left at least 40 soldiers dead, as opponents and supporters of a renegade ex-general clashed for control of a key air base in the port city of Benghazi. Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud AbdelWahed, reporting from Tripoli, said four separate suicide attacks targeted the Benina air base on Thursday killing at least 40 soldiers loyal to former general Khalifa Haftar and wounding dozens more. "Fighting is ongoing around the strategic Benina air base, with militias seeking to capture the base before Eid on Saturday," he said. "The air base houses heavy weaponry and is crucial for the militias as they attempt to seize control of Benghazi," AbdelWahed added. The Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries said it carried out the attack in conjuction with the Libya Shield brigade and Ansar al-Sharia. Special army […]
OPEC Supply Risks Mount as Biggest Libyan Field Is Halted
A reduction in OPEC crude output deepened as Libya’s biggest producing oilfield stopped pumping amid supply cuts from Saudi Arabia and potential disruptions to Nigerian exports. Libya halted the Sharara oilfield as a precaution after a rocket attack on the connected Zawiya refinery three days ago, closing down about 30 percent of national output. In Africa ’s largest oil producer, state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. was in talks yesterday to prevent a strike that threatened to disrupt exports. Saudi Arabia told the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that in August it made the deepest production cut in 18 months. Brent crude futures declined 14 percent in the past three months, falling to a two-year low of $96.21 a barrel on Sept. 15. Global oil demand growth is the slowest since 2011, while the U.S. shale boom means oil production outside OPEC is rising by the most since the 1980s, […]
Production at Libyan’s Largest Oil Field Cut Due to Unrest
LONDON—Production at Libya’s largest field has been cut slightly after rockets fell near the refinery it supplies, a spokesman for state-owned National Oil Co. said Tuesday. The news underscores how a fast oil-recovery operation could be hindered by continuous chaos in the country. The NOC spokesman said staff had been reduced after rockets fell near the Zawiya refinery on Monday, forcing Sharara, the field that supplies the plant, to pare back its output. "People are afraid to go there," he said. Libyan oil production has been ramping up in recent months after agreements with protesters led to the reopening of ports and fields. The country’s output stood above 800,000 barrels a day, as of the most recent count on Monday. But the NOC spokesman said he had no update for Tuesday. Yet analysts have warned that fighting between militias—which are supported by two rival parliaments—could jeopardize progress in the […]
Libya’s embattled premier seeks support from UAE
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Libyan prime minister has met with leaders of the United Arab Emirates to shore up support for his efforts to form a government after the elected parliament that chose him was forced to flee the capital by Islamist-allied militias over the summer. The UAE state news agency said that Abdullah al-Thinni was in the country Wednesday to discuss the importance of strengthening bilateral relations in a way that serves the joint interests of both countries. The UAE has cracked down hard on Islamist groups domestically and backed regional efforts to crush the Muslim Brotherhood. U.S. officials had suggested that the UAE and Egypt were behind air strikes on Islamist militias in Libya, but al-Thinni told reporters in Abu Dhabi that there was no evidence to support that claim.
More Libyan crude available, OPEC says
VIENNA, Sept. 10 (UPI) — More barrels of oil on the global market in part because of Libya are keeping oil prices lower, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said. OPEC said in its monthly market report for September crude oil production from the 12 members of the cartel increased by 231,000 barrels per day last month to average 30.35 million bpd. Iraq and Saudi Arabia were the only two member states to post a decline in oil production since the last monthly market report. Libya, meanwhile, posted in the highest gains in terms of percent . Libya in August produced an average 538,000 bpd, a 26.5 percent increase from July and more than twice what it produced in June. "An agreement to open some Libyan ports and resume exports of crude made additional barrels available on the global market and applied downward pressure on light sweet crude oil […]
Libyan Refugees Stream to Tunisia for Care, and Tell of a Home That Is Torn Apart
SFAX, Tunisia — Libyans seeking medical care and a refuge from war are filling the private clinics in this coastal Tunisian city for the second time in three years, bringing with them fresh accounts of the violence racking their country. Since the revolution three years ago that overthrew Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, about 1.8 million Libyans — nearly a third of the country’s population — have fled to Tunisia. A new wave of refugees has arrived in recent months as fighting has engulfed the Libyan capital , Tripoli, driven away by random shelling and shooting, as well as shortages of cash, electricity and fuel. “The country has plunged into the sea,” said Jomaa Abdullah, 68, a farm laborer from near Tripoli who had brought his son for treatment for gunshot wounds. “It’s gone. It’s going to be hard for it to come back.” The refugees’ accounts of the most recent […]
Former Libya Rebels Keep Oil Flowing Amid Islamist Surge
The group that controls Libya ’s largest oil port pledged to work with the government to keep crude flowing to international markets and defend oilfields against any advance by Islamist militias that seized Tripoli, the country’s capital. “We are in agreement with the government of Prime Minister Abdulla al-Theni to work together and defeat Islamist terror,” said Ali Al-Hasy, a spokesman of the Executive Office for the Barqa region, which seeks self-rule for eastern Libya. “The oil fields and oil ports in the region between Benghazi and Sirte are well under our control. Our role is to make sure oil is flowing and production is rising, to ensure that the government has the means to provide for the needs of the people and to successfully confront these terrorists.” While Islamist militias seeking to expand their political power seized control of Tripoli last month, forcing the government to move its […]
Libyan Militias Seize Control Of Capital As Chaos Rises
CAIRO — The government of Libya said Monday that it had lost control of its ministries to a coalition of militias that had taken over the capital, Tripoli, in another milestone in the disintegration of the state. “The government reiterates that these buildings and the public headquarters are not safe and inaccessible, because they are under the control of armed men,” the government said in a statement. It was issued from the eastern city of Tobruk, where the recently elected Parliament has convened in territory controlled by a renegade general who has tried to stage a coup d’état. The statement indicated the emergence of two rival centers of government — one in Tripoli and the other in Tobruk — each all but powerless. Over the last two months, the fractious militias that have dominated the country since the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi three years ago — variously local, […]
Oil-Field Flows to Libya’s Key Port Resume Despite Conflict
A view of the anchorage at the Es Sider export terminal in Ras Lanuf, west of Benghazi in Libya. Reuters Libya’s largest oil port Es Sider is now receiving supplies from oil fields after the terminal resumed exports despite intense fighting in the capital of Tripoli. An oil official in Tripoli said late Thursday that the Waha Oil Co. was supplying 22,000 barrels a day to the Es Sider terminal in eastern Libya, after oil in storage at the port started to be shipped last week, ending a one-year stoppage. The Waha Oil Co. is a partnership between Libya’s National Oil Co. and U.S. companies Marathon Oil Corp. , Hess Corp. and ConocoPhillips . It had previously been producing about 3,000 barrels a day used for maintenance and small supplies to the neighboring Brega oil terminal, the official said. But all Waha Oil Co.’s oil flows have now been […]