By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab and Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 3 April 2013:
An explosion hit the gas pipeline connecting Brega and Benghazi last night, Tuesday. . . .[restrict]It happened at near Ajdabiya, according to Libyan news agency LANA. The reason for the explosion is not known, however it is thought to have been accidental and not caused by terrorists. No one was injured.
The 260-kilometre 34-inch pipeline, run by Brega Petroleum Marketing, carries gas from the Brega plant to Benghazi’s gas oil terminal and feeds Benghazi North Power Station, 14 kilometres north of the city. It appears that the supply has not been affected. There have been no outages in Benghazi.
Solidarity Press has quoted the head of the local military brigade guarding oil installations in eastern Libya, Hussein Dinali, as saying that there had been no damage but it was also reported that there was a fire at the pipeline.
The Benghazi North station also runs on oil.
Sources working at international oil companies (IOC), speaking to Libya Herald today on strict basis of anonimity, confirmed that the incident was accidental. However, they predicted that unfortunately, unless the NOC and its subsidiaries are allocated some funds for urgent repairs and upgrading, such incidents are likely to re-occure.
The sources felt that unless the Ministry of Oil is allocated a budget specifically for the urgent upkeep of the oil infrastructure in the 2013 budget, achieving the desired production increase to 1.7 million barrels per day by the end of 2013 was going to be a challenge.
The government post the end of the revolution, for obvious reasons, was preoccupied with raising production in the short term, the sources felt, and that in the medium term it must manage the wells that were shut-down and reopened suddenly. The IOC sources felt that the government must start a drilling programme soon if it is serious about raising oil production in the short term [/restrict]
