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By Libya Herald reporter.
Tripoli, 4 September 2016:
The chairman of the National Oil Company (NOC) , Mustafa Sanalla has suggested that in order to spend to increase production it may have to start raising loans or having even taking the income from the oil it sells directly in accordance with Libyan law. He has also accused the Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG) of no longer working to protect the oilfields. As for those with Ibrahim Jadhran, their numbers had been massively inflated, he said, and Jadhran himself had not reopened the oil terminals controlled by him as promised.
There had to be a new system of managing oil income so that the NOC could run its companies and affiliates, he insisted.
Currently, oil revenues are paid not to the NOC but to the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) which then pays the NOC as per the budget drawn up by the government. Sanalla has already sharply criticised the PC for not allocating funds to the NOC and instructing the CBL to pay them. As a result of the cash flow crisis, the NOC has been unable to pay oil workers and contractors, as a result of which oil liftings have declined massively.
Sanalla, in an interview on Friday with Libya HD TV, again noted that the NOC had asked earlier this year LD 1 billion to work on increasing the oil production from what was then between 700,000 and 900,000 barrels-a-day output, but that the PC had not come up with the money.
On the issue of the PFG, Sanalla said it had no more than 1,000 men operating – a figure which others connected to the force have also stated. However, central region PFG, run by Ibrahim Jadhran has claimed to have mover 22,800 men – and been paid for them in the past.
Last week, the NOC chairman accused the PC of losing the country $10 million a day in oil sales as a result. Some $1.56 billion had been lost since it took control of spending in the country, he said. He also demanded an explanation from the PC as to why it was delaying payments. So far there has been no response.
This latest intervention from the Tripoli NOC chairman could freeze the already fast cooling relations between him and the PC. As yet it has not confirmed him as head of the NOC.
