“The EEP declares a state of force majeure at the Sharara oil field from Sunday, January 7, 2024 due to the blockade of the facility by protesters,” the state-owned company said in a press release it released.
Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC) announced yesterday Sunday that it has halted production at a strategically important oil field in the southwestern part of the country, explaining that protesters are blocking activity at the facility.
“The EEP declares a state of force majeure at the Sharara oil field from Sunday, January 7, 2024 due to the blockade of the facility by protesters,” the state-owned company said in a press release it released.
The “state of force majeure” (French for force majeure), which is declared in exceptional circumstances, allows EEP to waive its responsibilities in the event of a breach of its contractual obligations regarding crude deliveries.
The EEP did not specify what the protesters’ demands are.
“This shutdown caused the suspension of crude oil deliveries to the terminal in Zawiya” (north), the EEP said, stressing that “negotiations” are underway, which “continue”, with a view to resuming production “as soon as possible”.
About 900 kilometers south of the capital Tripoli, Sarara produces under normal conditions 315,000 barrels of crude a day, out of a total output of 1.2 million barrels a day. Production reached 1.5 to 1.6 million barrels per day before the 2011 uprising.
The oil field in Sharara, in the Umbari region, the main supplier of the refinery in Zawiya, which in turn is the main supplier of the Libyan fuel market, is managed by Akakus, a joint venture of EEP, Spain’s Repsol, France’s Total, Austria’s ÖMV and Norway’s Statoil.
After the overthrow and death of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya, the country with the largest oil and gas reserves in Africa, has struggled to turn the page on the chaos and divisions that have plagued it for nearly a decade and a half, with two rival governments to continue to claim power each on its own behalf.
Blockades or occupations of oil wells and/or terminals are a phenomenon that has been repeated quite often in recent years in Libya. They are connected either to social claims, or to security threats, or political differences. They have caused hundreds of billions of dollars in losses, according to the central bank, in a country practically dependent on oil export revenues.
Source :Skai
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