An armed group has shut down two critical oil fields in Libya, causing the country’s daily oil production to decline by 330,000 barrels, according to the country’s national oil corporation.
The Libyan National Oil Corporation claimed it had shut off pump valves at the Sharara and el-Feel fields, effectively shutting down production in both. Libya’s oil production was over 1.2 billion barrels per day before the stoppage.
Mustafa Sanallah, the business’s CEO declared a force majeure, a legal manoeuvre that allows a corporation to exit commitments due to unforeseen events.
According to him, the closures cost Libya more than 160 million Dinar in lost revenue per day.
Sanallah said the NOC has urged public prosecutors “to take deterrent measures” and reveal “the planners, executors and the beneficiaries” of the shutdown. The same militia disrupted oil production at both fields in 2014 and 2016, he added.
An oil official in the capital Tripoli confirmed that the militia responsibile for the shut down of the fields is from the mountainous town of Zintan, around 136 kilometres southwest of Tripoli.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media, said tribal leaders in the area were talking with militia leaders to allow the resumption of oil production.
The stoppage occurred as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has shook global markets and pushed crude oil prices beyond $115 per barrel.
Libya possesses the world’s ninth-largest known oil reserves, as well as the largest in Africa.
The dizzying changes in Libya’s oil resources have come amid a deepening stalemate between two competing governments which threatens to pull the country into chaos.
