Libya moved closer to reopening its battered oil industry after the state energy firm said it would resume exports, though only from fields and ports that are free of foreign mercenaries and other fighters.
The National Oil Corp. is ending force majeure — a legal status protecting a party that can’t fulfill a contract for reasons beyond its control — at “secure” facilities in the conflict-ridden nation and has told companies to resume production. The shutdown would continue elsewhere until militias leave, the NOC said in a statement Saturday.
Oil facilities have been at the heart of Libya’s civil war, now almost a decade old, with different groups closing or sabotaging them to press political and economic demands. Daily crude production slumped to less than 100,000 barrels in January from 1.1 million after Khalifa Haftar, a Russian-backed commander who controls eastern Libya, blockaded energy infrastructure.
Output will probably increase to 550,000 barrels a day by the end of 2020 and to almost a million by the middle of next year, according to forecasts from Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Some firms that use or operate the OPEC member’s eastern ports announced they were restarting work. Among them were Arabian Gulf Oil Co., which can produce almost 300,000 barrels a day and exports them from Hariga port, and Sirte Oil & Gas Production and Processing Co., which runs the Brega terminal.
Post time: Sep-27-2020