Category: North Africa

Destroyed buildings seen after Egypt’s army warplanes carried out airstrikes in neighboring Libya against targets belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant group in Derna, Libya, on Feb. 16. Photographer: Jawhar Ali/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images (Bloomberg) — The beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians by Islamic State’s affiliate in Libya is giving impetus to calls for broader military action against Islamist militants in the oil-rich country. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, whose air force bombed Islamic State targets in Libya on Monday, said his country will ask the United Nations Security Council to authorize intervention in the North African nation. Italy, Libya’s former colonial ruler, said it would consider sending a force under a UN mandate. The Egyptian military also deployed soldiers at home to “secure vital institutions and installations,” it said in a statement. Tunisia, Libya’s western neighbor, said helicopters and fighter jets were conducting reconnaissance […]

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London (Platts)–16Feb2015/747 am EST/1247 GMT Crude production at Libya’s major Sarir field has been halted following an attack by saboteurs on the pipeline linking the field with the port of Marsa el-Hariga in eastern Libya, bringing the country’s remaining onshore oil production almost to a complete standstill. The loss of Sarir output means Libyan production will now likely have fallen below 150,000 b/d and exports from its onshore terminals effectively halted. Production had already fallen to around 350,000 b/d in early 2014 — less than one third of the country’s capacity of around 1.5 million b/d — due to fighting near key oil infrastructure and attacks on fields, terminals and pipelines. Output continues from the offshore El Jurf and Bouri fields, which have been unaffected by the recent unrest across mainland Libya, at an estimated 100,000 b/d. The latest attack near Sarir occurred early Saturday and resulted in a […]

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Blaze at Libyan oil field extinguished, the terrorists concerns spreading in the country. UPI/Tariq AL-hun. Though flames are out at a pipeline from its largest oil field, the Egyptian bombing of Islamic State targets in Libya show terrorists are gaining ground. 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-led forces intervened during civil war in 2011 was producing around 1.2 million barrels of oil per day. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in its latest monthly report said member-state Libya was producing around 343,000 bpd as of January, a 27 percent decline from December. Sarir was producing around 185,000 bpd. Libyan production declines since the […]

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A relative of one of the Egyptian Coptic Christians purportedly murdered by Islamic State group militants in Libya reacts after hearing the news in the village of Al-Awar in Egypt’s southern province of Minya, on Feb. 16, 2015. Photographer: Mohamed El-Shahed/AFP via Getty Images (Bloomberg) — Italy’s government will brief parliament this week on the deteriorating situation in Libya as Prime Minister Matteo Renzi considers military intervention to halt the advance of Islamic State on his Mediterranean doorstep. Italy is ready to send more than 5,000 soldiers under a United Nations mandate to stop Islamic State, “which is now 350 kilometers from our shores,” Foreign Minister Roberta Pinotti said in an interview published Sunday in newspaper Il Messaggero. “We’ve been discussing it for months, but now the need for intervention has become urgent.” A power struggle between Islamists and the elected Libyan government has divided the country, driving it […]

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(Bloomberg) — Libya’s rival Islamist parliament said it would fight to retake the city of Sirte from Islamic State militants, as the North African oil producer slipped deeper into anarchy. The General National Congress’s decision, reported today by the state-run Libya News Agency, came after it agreed with the allied Libya Dawn group of militias to form a joint military force to recapture state installations in the city that militants had seized. The move underscores tensions among Islamists at a time when the GNC and others are seeking to distance themselves from Islamic State, the militant movement that has seized large swaths of Syria and Iraq. It also adds another layer of friction between Islamists who refused to accept the results of last year’s parliamentary vote, and the elected legislature and government that blame them for the spike in violence, saying they created a breeding ground for “terrorists.” The […]

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Smoke rises from the port of the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi during clashes between forces loyal to the internationally recognised government and militias, on Feb. 14, 2015. Photographer: Abdullah Doma/AFP via Getty Images (Corrects length of Qaddafi’s rule in fourth paragraph in story originally published Feb. 14.) (Bloomberg) — Libya’s state-run oil company warned that it would shut production at all fields if authorities in the divided nation fail to contain an escalation of attacks on facilities that cut crude output to a year-low. “If these incidents continue, National Oil Corp. will regrettably be forced to stop all operations at all fields in order to preserve the lives” of employees, the company said in a statement on its website. “National Oil Corp. urges the Ministry of Defense and the Petroleum Facilities Guard to take the appropriate measures to protect oil sites.” The North African nation’s oil production was […]

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Libyan oil officials have blamed saboteurs for blowing up a pipeline and stopping flows from the country’s largest oil field. The fire from the Saturday explosion was extinguished on Sunday, the state-owned National Oil Co. said. The blast affected the pipeline from Sarir, until now the country’s highest-producing oil field at 185,000 barrels a day, said the company on its website over the weekend. The blast came after gunmen assaulted a U.S.-Libyan oil field Friday and less than two weeks after gunmen claiming to represent Islamic State killed nine guards and kidnapped at least three workers at a nearby Libyan-French facility. The field attacked on Saturday is operated by an NOC subsidiary. Libya’s production level fell to about 325,000 barrels a day in January from almost 900,000 barrels in October. Production has been dented by an armed conflict between two rival governments and now oil officials fear foreign terrorist […]

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Two Libyan oil fields were attacked on Friday, Libyan oil officials said, in a fresh wave of violence targeting the North African country’s vital energy sector. The Libyan oil officials said guards repelled gunmen who assaulted the Bahi oil field operated by Waha Oil Co., a joint venture between the state-owned National Oil Co. and U.S. companies ConocoPhillips , Marathon Oil Corp. and Hess Corp. Meanwhile, the neighboring Mabruk oil field, operated by a Libyan joint venture with France’s Total SA, was stormed, officials said. “Smoke is coming out of the Mabruk field,” one official said. No one claimed responsibility for Friday’s attacks. Mabruk was also assaulted on Feb. 3 in what Libyan officials described as a coordinated terrorist attack. Nine guards were killed and three workers were taken hostage, officials said. A group claiming to represent Islamic State took responsibility for that attack on Mabruk. Libya’s oil production […]

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The Battle for Libya’s Oil thumbnail The first artillery rounds landed just as the setting sun threw shadows on this barren stretch of coast. Atop an earthen observation berm, a young fighter in an oversize flak vest peered through a makeshift periscope. Six miles away was the prize: white storage tanks filled with oil. Over the walkie-talkie came a hurried voice: “Saadun, Saadun, the bird is here, the bird is here!” Saadun was the codename for a portly commander in the Libya Dawn militia and my escort on the frontline when I visited Libya in January. His men—boys, actually—had teased him earlier for struggling to haul his hefty frame up the berm. The bird was a MiG-21 or MiG-23 fighter-bomber belonging to the rival Dignity forces. An overhead roar gave way to crackling flashes across a cloudless sky—flak from anti-aircraft guns. The MiG dropped its bomb about a mile […]

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