By Callum Paton.
Tripoli, 12 July 2014:
Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG) have blockaded Brega oil terminal in a blow to . . .[restrict]national oil production following a recent run of good news.
National Oil Corporation (NOC) spokesman Mohammed Al-Harrari told the Libya Herald that PFG forces began their action yesterday. He estimated that the closure would cost roughly 60,000 barrels per day as oil fields operated by the NOC subsidiary Sirte Oil and producing oil for export at Brega would have to suspend work.
Three days ago, oil started flowing from Sharara oilfield in the southwest following on and off closures which began there more than a year and a half ago. If production at the field can be sustained it will more than double national oil production which has dropped to around 240,000 b/d, with the closure at Brega. Shortly after the revolution national production reached 1.5 million b/d.
Force majuere was lifted on the eastern oil terminals of Ras Lanuf and Sidra following their handover by federalist forces over one week ago. No oil had been exported from the two terminals since 18 August last year, after Ibrahim Jedhran’s self-declared, federalist Cyrenaica Political Bureau (CPB) closed them. Brega was itself also closed at the same time but reopened a few days afterwards.
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