Libya’s biggest oil field Sharara fully halts production in alleged “political blackmail” stunt
(Bloomberg) – Libya’s biggest oil field halted production Monday after the operator was forced to gradually cut output over the weekend, according to two people familiar with the operations.
Production at Sharara in southern Libya has stopped completely from nearly 270,0000 bpd on Saturday when employees received orders to trim output, according to the people, who asked not to be identified as they aren’t authorized to speak to the media.
It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the decision to curtail production. Libya’s internationally recognized government on Sunday said shutting the project was “political blackmail,” without elaborating. The North African nation is split between dueling administrations in the capital in the west, Tripoli, and a rival in the east.
The shutdown is the latest example of the security problems that have disrupted energy infrastructure for years. Sharara had a weekslong force majeure, a clause in contracts allowing deliveries to be suspended, in January following demonstrations. The smaller Wafa field in western Libya and a natural gas link to Italy also had a brief halt in February following protests.
The African nation’s output reached almost 1.8 MMbpd in 2008, before slumping to about 100,000 following the killing of Moammar Al Qaddafi in the 2011 civil war. It has been volatile ever since, although largely steady at about 1.2 MMbpd in recent months.
Some local media said Sharara was closing because of protests over better socio-economic conditions, citing a letter from Akakus Oil, the operator of the field. Other news outlets attributed it to Saddam Haftar, the son of military strongman Khalifa Haftar who leads the Libyan National Army that controls the east and much of the south and has carried out blockades in recent years.
Sharara is a joint venture between Libya’s state oil firm National Oil Corp., France’s TotalEnergies SE, Spain’s Repsol SA, Austria’s OMV AG and Norway’s Equinor ASA.
