The Man-Made River Authority reported at 9.15 am yesterday that power was gradually restored to the Eastern Region section - the Sarir and Tazerbo wellfields – of the project.
This, after it had announced a total power outage across the entire Eastern Region early Saturday morning (12:45 am). This was a result of a general blackout from Misrata to the Egyptian border.
The outage had cut off electricity to the wellfields in the Sarir and Tazerbo areas, as well as the water pumping station in Benghazi. Benghazi is Libya’s second largest city with an estimated population of 893,000.
Sarir wellfield
The MMR said power was gradually restored starting at 8:00 am, with electricity returning to the Sarir wellfield; three technical teams were immediately deployed to restart the field and bring the wells back online.
Tazerbo wellfield
The MMR then reported at 13.22 yesterday that power supply was restored to the Tazerbo wellfield at 11:41 am.
It said gradual activation of the wells had commenced from the control room and the processing unit teams for both the Eastern and Western fields. It said 40 out of the 50 wells had been brought online, and work is underway to activate the remaining wells successively.
Reduced water supplies
However, the MMR informed that due to these emergency conditions, it was compelled to reduce water supplies to certain cities and agricultural projects. This measure was taken to prevent the main system pipeline from draining and to build up sufficient water reserves in the Ajdabiya collection and balancing reservoir.
It confirmed that the supply of standard water volumes to all cities will gradually resume once all wells are operational and water levels within the reservoirs return to normal.
The MMR reiterated that the stoppage and deactivation of the wells resulted from the general power outage in the Eastern Region—a situation beyond its control or responsibility.
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