Category: North Africa

The halls of this city’s international airport have been emptied of passengers and converted into a barracks for fighters, with a kitchen and a field hospital. Smoke rose from the building on Tuesday, while beyond it, on the airfield, mortar shells crashed into the tarmac. Three days of pitched battles between feuding militias have left most of the airport’s commercial airplanes, runways and even the tower badly damaged, all but stranding Libyans as their country slides further into turmoil. The country has been plagued by violence for much of the time since Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s fall in 2011, as the central government has tried in vain to wrest authority from the powerful militias that control territory and vital installations like the airport. But the latest dark turn, marked by the demoralizing destruction of the airport but also by furious, deadly battles in Libya ’s two largest cities, […]

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Several rockets have reportedly hit the airport in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, where fighting between rival armed groups has been raging since Sunday. Several Grad rocket struck the airport late on Monday,destroying 90 percent of the planes parked there, government spokesman Ahmed Lamine said.  "The government has studied the possibility to bring international forces to enhance security", he said. The attack also damaging the control tower, residents said. Two people were also killed in the attack, Reuters news agency reported. Authorities had closed the airport due to previous fighting on Sunday, which medics say killed at least seven people . Rival militias have clashed for control of the airport. The powerful Zintan armed group ,which has been in control of the airport since the fall of Gaddafi, was still holding it by Monday. The United Nations mission in Libya said it was withdrawing its staff from Libya "temporarily" because of the deteriorating […]

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TRIPOLI, Libya (Reuters) – A militia shelled Tripoli airport, destroying 90 percent of planes parked there, a Libyan government spokesman said, as heavy fighting between armed groups prompted the United Nations to pull its staff out of the North African country. At least 15 people have been killed in clashes in Tripoli and the eastern city of Benghazi since Sunday, and a Libyan official said several Grad rockets hit the Tripoli International Airport on Monday, damaging the control tower. Government spokesman Ahmed Lamine said 90 percent of the planes parked at the airport were destroyed. "The government has studied the possibility to bring international forces to enhance security," he told reporters On Tuesday. Three years after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has slipped deeper into chaos with its weak government and new army unable to control brigades of former rebel fighters and militias who often battle for political […]

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LONDON—Despite the reopening of two key terminals, a fragile oil recovery in Libya is showing cracks as the crude struggles to make it back to markets, oil officials said Monday. A planned tanker loading was disrupted by a protest this weekend, while the company overseeing Libya’s largest field was caught in Tripoli’s gunfire and customers are reluctant to buy the country’s unreliable cargoes, oil officials say. Last week, Brent oil prices fell to a three-month low after rebels in Libya agreed to reopen two key oil terminals they had occupied for nearly a year and separately, protesters allowed the country’s largest oil field to restart . The country’s production has jumped to 470,000 barrels a day, a spokesman for state-run National Oil Co. said. That is three times its level in late May but still only a third of its normal level. But over the weekend plans to load […]

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LONDON—Despite the reopening of two key terminals, a fragile oil recovery in Libya is showing cracks as the crude struggles to make it back to markets, oil officials said Monday. A planned tanker loading was disrupted by a protest this weekend, while the company overseeing Libya’s largest field was caught in Tripoli’s gunfire and customers are reluctant to buy the country’s unreliable cargoes, oil officials say. Last week, Brent oil prices fell to a three-month low after rebels in Libya agreed to reopen two key oil terminals they had occupied for nearly a year and separately, protesters allowed the country’s largest oil field to restart . The country’s production has jumped to 470,000 barrels a day, a spokesman for state-run National Oil Co. said. That is three times its level in late May but still only a third of its normal level. But over the weekend plans to load […]

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Rebels in Libya’s east committed to keeping open the country’s largest oil port, Es Sider , and dissociated themselves from a protest that shut a smaller crude export terminal. Brent traded near the lowest in three months. “This incident, in the port of Brega, has no impact on the agreement with the government to open Es Sider and Ras Lanuf,” said Ali al-Hasy, a spokesman for the self-declared Executive Office for the Barqa region. “We stand by the agreement with the government. Es Sider and Ras Lanuf will stay open.” Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, Libya’s third-largest oil port, have a combined daily loading capacity of 560,000 barrels. Brega, which was reported July 12 to have been shut by guards seeking better pay, can export 60,000 barrels a day, according to the Oil Ministry. The Executive Office for Barqa seeks self-rule for the eastern region also known as Cyrenaica. […]

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Energy industry watchers said Wednesday optimism over the rebound of Libyan oil production should be tempered. Forecasts of the potential in Libya’s oil sector have waxed and waned since the end of civil war in 2011. The country has yet to pass its pre-war peak of 1.4 million barrels per day and early 2014 output had plummeted to well below 500,000 bpd. The National Oil Co. said late Tuesday production from the giant El-Sharara field had resumed. It has a capacity for 340,000 bpd, but an unidentified industry source told the Platts energy reporting agency it was too early to declare recovery. "It was down for a long time," the source said . "It will not be at full capacity for weeks, or even months." The pipeline connecting the field to export terminals has been blocked off by protests for most of the year. In April, the Libyan government […]

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Libya’s largest oil field Sharara has resumed production, a top oil official said Wednesday, the latest sign of an improvement in the country’s troubled oil sector. The move follows the lifting of a force majeure on two Eastern terminals that account for nearly half of Libya’s oil export capacity, following a deal with militants who had occupied them. The 340,000-barrels-a-day Sharara oil field, where Spanish oil company Repsol SA is a partner, has resumed output after protests ended there, a spokesman for the state-run National Oil Co. said. He confirmed that exports could still take a week to restart because the oil flows will first have to supply the Zawiya refinery. Libya’s oil industry has been disrupted frequently by strikes and armed occupations since a civil war toppled former leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Together with the reopening of the two oil ports, Sharara’s resumption could bring oil production […]

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Libya’s largest oil field Sharara has resumed production, a top oil official said Wednesday, the latest sign of an improvement in the country’s troubled oil sector. The move follows the lifting of a force majeure on two Eastern terminals that account for nearly half of Libya’s oil export capacity, following a deal with militants who had occupied them. The 340,000-barrels-a-day Sharara oil field, where Spanish oil company Repsol SA is a partner, has resumed output after protests ended there, a spokesman for the state-run National Oil Co. said. He confirmed that exports could still take a week to restart because the oil flows will first have to supply the Zawiya refinery. Libya’s oil industry has been disrupted frequently by strikes and armed occupations since a civil war toppled former leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Together with the reopening of the two oil ports, Sharara’s resumption could bring oil production […]

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