By Nigel Ash
NOC board member Mustafa Sanalla speaking in London today (photo: . . .[restrict]Nigel Ash, Libya Herald)
London, 17 September 2013:
As strikers permit the resumption of work at oil fields and export terminals Libya oil production, already back to 243,000 barrels a day will have risen to 700,000 b/d by Friday, a senior NOC executive said today in London.
Speaking on the sidelines of the FDI Libya conference Mustafa Sanalla, an executive board member of the NOC board said that production was now flowing from Al-Sharara and El-Fil (Elephant) fields. “I believe that it will be to 700,000 barrels by Friday” he said and put in a call to his Tripoli office to confirm that figures.
He said that Force Majeure had been partially lifted on export contracts and export terminals were now working. Earlier in the day when Prime Minister Ali Zeidan had spoken to the conference, he said that the disruptions had been costing Libya $130 million a day.
Sanalla also outlined NOC’s plans to spend $60 billion over the next six years on new and upgraded refining capacity, raising product capacity from the current 380,000 to 1 million barrels a day.
He said it was absurd that the country was importing 80 percent of its petrol, 40 percent of its diesel and 25 percent of its LPG. He said that he thought that it was likely that the first expansion would take place at the Zawia refinery. [/restrict]
