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Snam Says First Gas Flows Coming from Libya After Stoppage

By Liam Moloney ROME–Snam SpA (SRG.MI), Italy’s biggest natural gas grid operator by pipelines, Wednesday said it is registering the first gas imports from Libya arriving in Sicily after unrest in the North African country blocked flows last week. Libyan gas flows are registered in the Sicilian Gela entry point, said Snam in a message sent via Twitter. It expects 3.5 million cubic meters of gas Wednesday, it added. Eni SpA (E), Italy’s biggest energy company by market value, said Nov. 11 that protesters in Libya had stopped gas exports to Italy. The protesters had blocked the key gas terminal of Mellitah, which is jointly run by Eni and the Libyan National Oil Co. The terminal facilitates gas exports via the Greenstream pipeline that can supply more than 10% of gas demand in Italy. Write to Liam Moloney at [email protected]

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Car bomb attack kills 10 Egyptian soldiers in Sinai

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) – Ten Egyptian soldiers were killed and 35 wounded in a car bomb attack near the North Sinai city of El-Arish on Wednesday, a security official said. The attack was one of the deadliest in the Sinai Peninsula, which is near Israel and the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip, since al Qaeda-inspired militants began stepping up assaults following the army’s ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July. The soldiers were traveling in a convoy on the road to the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. A Sinai-based militant group, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, said it assassinated a high-ranking security officer in Cairo on Sunday, according to a statement posted on a militant Islamist website. That group has also said it was behind a failed suicide attack on Egypt’s interior minister in September. In a separate incident on Wednesday, three people were wounded […]

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Militias in Libya Spawn Protests

Leaders in Libya’s capital city of Tripoli began a three-day strike to protest the country’s freewheeling militias after clashes between pro-government forces and militants from the rival power center of Misrata erupted into deadly violence. In another blow to the government on Sunday, the country’s deputy intelligence chief, Mustapha Noah, was kidnapped at Tripoli’s airport. No one claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, which came a month after a militia briefly kidnapped Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidan. The militias from Misrata agreed late Sunday to leave Tripoli within 72 hours, according to local news reports, after Mr. Zidan warned militiamen from outside the capital that there would be a “bloodbath” if they tried to enter Tripoli. Public anger toward militants boiled over on Friday, when protesters here demanded that militias from around the country leave Tripoli. The protesters were fired on when they approached the headquarters of the armed group […]

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Libyan Official Abducted Amid Unrest in Capital

CAIRO — The deputy chief of Libya’s intelligence service was abducted from the parking lot of the airport in Tripoli on Sunday afternoon as a standoff between militias and a general strike against militia rule virtually shut down the city. The deputy intelligence chief, Mustafa Noah, was abducted just two days after a militia from the coastal city of Misurata opened fire on a nonviolent demonstration against the domination of Tripoli, Libya’s capital, by such armed brigades. The confrontation degenerated into a shootout that killed at least 43 and wounded hundreds, according to Libyan health officials. Many across Libya called the weekend a watershed for the vexed revolution that ousted Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi two years ago. It brought the first large demonstration by residents of the capital against the freewheeling militias that arrived to help oust Colonel Qaddafi and never left the city, and it posed a major test […]

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U.S. Military Considers a Mission to Train Libyan Security Forces

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — The United States military is considering a mission to train Libyan security personnel with the goal of creating a force of 5,000 to 7,000 conventional soldiers and a separate, smaller unit for specialized counterterrorism missions, according to the top officer at the United States Special Operations Command. Speaking on Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library here, the commander, Adm. William H. McRaven, said no final decisions had been made about a training mission to support Libya, where militia violence has increased in recent days. It has not been decided which nations would be involved or where the training would take place, officials said, but the overall mission would be organized by the military’s Africa Command . Admiral McRaven and other officials noted that the Pentagon’s evolving national security strategy calls for building counterterrorism capabilities among local […]

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Apache, Sinopec complete Egyptian deal

Apache Corp. has completed its sale to Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration & Production Corp. of a one-third interest in its Egyptian oil and gas business ( OGJ Online, Aug. 30, 2013 ). After closing adjustments, Apache received $2.95 billion in cash. It will remain operator of the interests, which cover 9.7 million gross acres, mostly undeveloped.

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple