Libyan Oil Output Under Threat Amid Fresh Protests

Protesters shut down oil distribution valves in response to the kidnapping of a senior intelligence officer, for which they blame the government in Tripoli.

The valves connect the Sharara field, Libya’s largest, and the El Feel field, to a refinery in Zawya, media reported.

The facility has a processing capacity of 350,000 barrels daily or roughly a third of Libya’s oil production.

Brigadier General Mustafa al-Whayshi, director of Libya’s Central Security Department, a unit of the intelligence services, was kidnapped earlier this week. The kidnappers have not declared themselves and the government, according to the protesters, is not responding appropriately to the official’s disappearance.

Intelligence officers, however, issued a statement, saying that AL-Whayshi’s kidnapping was likely related to “ongoing investigations into cases impacting Libyan national security.”

The North Africa Post noted in a report that kidnappings of government officials were a frequent occurrence in Libya during investigations into corruption that involved members of the numerous militias in the country.

The new oil production disruption comes a month after output recovered following yet another outage caused by a field blockade. The blockade was imposed by the Libyan National Army, a militia affiliated with the eastern government in Tobruk, which had a disagreement with the Tripoli government about the new central bank governor.

After the dispute was settled by the two rival governments, the blockade was lifted and production ramped up to 1.3 million bpd in mid-October. In further good news for the country’s oil industry, Eni and BP returned there after years of absence amid the unstable political environment.

Two other Western energy majors are also returning to Libya, according to the National Oil Corporation. Repsol, the Spanish operator, was preparing to start drilling in the Murzuq Basin in the coming weeks, and Austria’s OMV was also preparing for drilling in the Sirte Basin, the Libyan state energy company reported in late October.

Source: Oilprice.com