The Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) has announced halting oil exports from Es Sidr port because of its inability to make up for the tanks “destroyed by wars”.
The NOC said oil ports in Libya aren’t operating well due to bad weather conditions, thus hindering connecting docked vessels at the port.
The NOC indicated that due to the lack of sufficient storage capacities, the oil in depots in the port increased, which forced Waha Oil Company to reduce crude production rates of Es Sidr by about 50,000 barrels per day (bpd), adding that bad weather conditions may lead to a further reduction in daily production, reaching 105,000 bpd.
“Waha Oil Company and the Brega Company have shortage of storage capacities due to the destruction they have suffered during wars in the past years. The country’s only source of income is now going through a lack of funding, which has made the NOC lose storage flexibility, burdened the country with additional financial costs, and lost an important part of the guaranteed income due to the drop of oil production capacities, which will improve when the weather is improved, so that oil shipments of resume in order for the NOC to return to normal oil output rates.” The NOC explained.
Meanwhile, the Libyan Prime Minister, Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah, ordered immediate opening of the oil fields of Sharara, Al-Feel, Al-Wafa and Al-Hamada, which were closed 20 days ago by individuals affiliated with the southwestern office of the Petroleum Facilities Guard.
Dbeibah listened, during a meeting with a number of members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard who closed the fields, to their demands and formed a committee to follow up on the difficulties they had been facing in performing their tasks.
In the meantime, the Minister of Oil and Gas, Mohammed Oun, announced that oil production will return to about 1.3 million bpd in the next two days, after production resumed in Sharara, Al-Feel, Al-Hamada and Al-Wafa oilfields, expecting that oil output will reach about 1.4 million bpd in 2022.
