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By Libya Herald reporters.
Tripoli, 20 June 2017:
The National Oil Corporation (NOC) has today announced production has passed 900,000 barrels a day. The state oil company looks set to meet million barrels a day target by the end of August set by its chairman Mustafa Sanalla.
The boost to NOC’s output has been underpinned by the temporary deal it made with German company Wintershall, which brought 160,000 bpd back into production. Though the row over changes to the Kassel-based BASF subsidiary’s favourable production sharing contracts continues, Sanalla persuaded the Germans to accept a temporary deal under which they will cover their costs.
Sanalla meanwhile is continuing his campaign to woo back foreign oilcos. He has just seen Fadel Hareeb the local chief of Norway’s Statoil which has a minority stake in the Sharara field. NOC said they talked about boosting production. However, it is clear that Sanalla is concerned not simply with the operational challenges of raising output but also with ensuring that the local communities associated with the field believe they have a vested interest in allowing production to continue uninterrupted.
The NOC chief is continuing his personal engagement which for instance in April saw him broker agreement with local elders to protect the reopened Sharara and El-Fil fields from further blockades. In recent days Sanalla has flown to at least five different oil fields to check for himself the state of the infrastructure and the relations with locals.
