A worker maintains oil pipelines at the Zueitina oil terminal in Zueitina, west of Benghazi. Mirroring the divide in the country, the state oil firm NOC has split into two managements.

Reuters/Benghazi


Libya is producing between 350,000 bpd and 400,000 bpd, roughly half the level it was a year ago, the chairman of a state oil firm loyal to the country’s internationally recognised government said yesterday.
Naji al-Maraghi also told Reuters his management was working to lift the force majeure on the closed oil ports of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, the country’s biggest, but no decision had made.
Both ports have been shut since December when fighting broke out between factions allied to Libya’s rival administrations. The clashes have ended, but Islamic State has attacked oilfields linked to the ports, part of chaos in the Opec member four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.
Mirroring the divide in the country, the state oil firm NOC has split into two managements. Foreign buyers of Libyan oil deal with the established state firm based in Tripoli which has processed oil exports for decades.
But the recognised administration, which has been based in the east since losing the capital a year ago, has appointed al-Maragahi as its own NOC head, working out of a new eastern headquarters and challenging the Tripoli management.
The eastern government said in March it wanted oil buyers to pay through a new bank account in Dubai, bypassing Tripoli.
To hammer home its message of change, the eastern NOC is staging an oil conference in Dubai on September 2 to discuss existing oil deals with foreign oil buyers and service firms.
Al-Maghrabi declined to elaborate on his planned discussions with oil firms in Dubai. Mohamed El-Harari, a spokesman for NOC Tripoli, also declined to comment on the conference.
The UN has urged the warring parties not to touch the state oil firm or the central bank, which processes oil revenues, Libya’s lifeline.
Al-Marghabi also said the eastern Zueitina port remained closed due to a pipeline blockage by locals demanding state jobs.
Libya’s conflict has reduced output to less than a quarter of production before an uprising toppled Gaddafi in 2011.
Most foreign oil companies have moved expatriate staff out of Libya or closed major fields due to insecurity or protests.