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Shale Gas Project Encounters Determined Foes Deep in Algerian Sahara

ALGIERS — Deep in the Algerian Sahara, daily protests against a pilot hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, project are now well into their second month. The demonstrations have spread to several towns and have provided opposition parties with a new platform at an especially precarious moment for the government, as oil prices have slumped and the declining health of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has removed him almost completely from public view. Hundreds of police officers sealed off streets to block an antifracking march in the capital, Algiers, on Tuesday as opposition groups held rallies around the country in solidarity with the southern protesters in the distant oasis town of Ain Salah. At first glance, Algeria might seem an unlikely place for the sort of popular movement against fracking, a method of tapping into deep deposits of shale gas, that has unfolded in many Western countries. Money from oil and gas accounts […]

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Libya’s Largest Oil Field Shut Down Again on Power Failure

Libya’s largest oil field was shut down again Tuesday after heavy rain led to a power failure, a Libyan oil official said. The Sarir oil field had resumed oil flows on Sunday after repairs were made to a pipeline blown up by militants a week earlier. The field normally pumps 185,000 barrels a day to the eastern Libyan oil port of Hariga. The official estimated that the field would begin pumping again in a few days. Write to Benoît Faucon at [email protected]

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Gas discovery confirmed in Moroccan shale

Gas discovery confirmed in onshore shale basin in Morocco, a third for Gulfsands Petroleum. Map courtesy: Gulfsands Petroleum. The company said results from an exploration well dubbed DOB-1 in the Rharb permit area of northern Morocco indicated a discovery after a test-flow rate of 10 million cubic feet of gas per day was achieved. DOB-1 is the third such success for the company in the permit area, Chief Executive Officer Mahdi Sajjad said in a statement. Morocco is one of the West African countries that have drawn interest from international energy companies eager to tap into unexploited reserves. Onshore, the country holds an estimated 20 trillion cubic feet of recoverable shale oil and natural gas reserves. Gulfsands, which has headquarters in London, said last year it planned to spend $3.5 million to develop its acreage in northern Morocco. "We are continuing with our efforts to commence production from these […]

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Ties to Islamic State Cited by Group in Libya Attacks

CAIRO — Militants pledging allegiance to the Islamic State claimed responsibility for three car bombs that killed at least 38 people in a town in eastern Libya on Friday in the latest escalation in a surge of violence linked to the group. The attacks, in the town of Qubbah, appeared to be one more turn in a cycle of retaliation that began when the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, released a video last week showing its fighters in western Libya beheading more than a dozen kidnapped Egyptian Christians . The government of Egypt responded with airstrikes on the city of Derna, a hub of Islamist militancy in eastern Libya where another group of fighters has pledged loyalty to the Islamic State. On Friday, the Islamic State branch in Derna claimed responsibility for the latest bombings “in revenge for the bloodshed of Muslims” in the city, according […]

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Multiple Suicide Bombings in Libya Kill at Least 45

TRIPOLI, Libya — Multiple suicide car bombings struck an eastern Libyan town, killing at least 45 people on Friday not far from a main base of the Islamic State group’s Libyan offshoot. The group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it came in retaliation for recent Egyptian airstrikes that avenged the beheading of 21 Christian hostages by Libyan Islamic State militants. The massive bombings rocked the town of Qubba, which is under control of the country’s internationally recognized government and about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Darna — a stronghold of Libya’s Islamic State branch. In a statement posted on social networking sites, the group said two of the "Caliphate’s knights" carried out the bombings, targeting what they described as a Libyan army operations room.

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Islamic State Claims East Libya Bomb Attacks as 33 Reported Dead

(Bloomberg) — Islamic State’s affiliate in Libya claimed responsibility for bomb attacks in the country’s east that left dozens dead, saying they were directed at the commander of a campaign against Islamist forces. The triple car bombing in Qubba, near the base of Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tobruk, killed at least 33 people including four Egyptian laborers, Al Jazeera television reported, citing Ibrahim Khalid, head of a local hospital. The attacks followed airstrikes carried out by Egypt’s military against Islamic State’s stronghold in Libya earlier this week, a response to the beheading of 21 captured Egyptian Christians by the jihadist group. Islamic State said on one of the websites it uses that the attack targeted the headquarters of Khalifa Haftar, a commander based in eastern Libya, who’s conducting a campaign against Islamist militias. He’s one of the local warlords to gain prominence in Libya as central authority in […]

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Pro-Islamic State militants seize Libyan university: residents

CAIRO (Reuters) – Militants claiming loyalty to Islamic State have seized the university in the central Libyan city of Sirte, residents said on Thursday, days after a video showed them staging a convoy parade. Islamist militants have made inroads into parts of the North African oil-producing country, exploiting a power vacuum created by a violent struggle for control between two competing governments. On Monday Egyptian planes struck suspected Islamic State targets in eastern Libya, after the group released a video showing the execution of 21 Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Sirte. On Wednesday Egypt and the official Libyan government asked the United Nations Security Council to lift an arms embargo and help build up the army to tackle the jihadists. "The group took control of the university yesterday," a Sirte resident said, asking not to be named. A picture posted on social media showed an Islamic State flag at the […]

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First Libyan oil exported in a week from Hariga storage

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – A tanker has loaded 600,000 barrels of crude from storage at the Libyan port of Hariga, an energy official said on Wednesday, the first vessel to pick up oil for export from the country in more than a week. The official said crude supplies from the Sarir oilfield, which flow to Hariga for export, remained disrupted following a pipeline blast, with repairs and maintenance expected to take a number of days. Libya’s oil exports, on which the North African country’s revenues depend, have collapsed as fighting among factions has split the nation. The shortfall helped raise the price of benchmark Brent oil to a 2015 high of $63 a barrel this week. Hariga is the only operating oil port, though two small offshore platforms can also export around 70,000 to 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude. No oil tankers departed Libya in the previous […]

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Libya’s oil economy at risk, envoy says

Libyan conflict may disrupt prime source of revenue, oil, says U.S. ambassador. UPITarek Alhuony. Internal conflicts in Libya may leave the country without a source of oil revenue in less than two years, the U.S. ambassador to Libya said Tuesday. The fire that resulted from the militant bombing of a pipeline at the Sarir oil field, the largest in Libya, was extinguished during the weekend. Sarir is in the same region as oil fields attacked last week by fighters claiming loyalty to the group calling itself the Islamic State. Libya before NATO forces intervened to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to former leader Moammar Gadhafi was producing around 1.2 million barrels of oil per day. In its monthly report for February, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said member-state Libya was producing around 343,000 bpd as of January, a 27 percent decline from December. Sarir was producing […]

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Egypt Launches Airstrike in Libya Against ISIS Branch

CAIRO — Egypt conducted an airstrike against an Islamist stronghold in Libya on Monday in retaliation for the beheading of at least a dozen Egyptian Christians by a local franchise of the Islamic State, in Cairo’s deepest reach yet into the chaos that has engulfed its neighbor. Hinting at possible further action, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt said in a statement that he had convened “a continuous session” of his National Defense Council to monitor events in Libya and to weigh additional measures. But the strike itself, hitting in the Libyan town of Derna at dawn, was a new turn in the breakdown of regional order in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolts and the Islamic State’s emergence. Nearly three and a half years after the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, two rival coalitions of militias are battling for control over Libya and its vast resources, including […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple