Bayda, Tripoli: Libya’s biggest oil port may reopen in two weeks as fighting in the area recedes amid increasing competition between the divided North African nation’s rival governments for the control of crude exports.
Al Mabrook Bu Seif, the chairman of state-run National Oil Corp appointed by the elected government in the east of the country, said his team will start contacting existing clients to coordinate crude loadings at oil ports, replacing the company’s rival management in the capital, Tripoli, where a cabinet backed by Islamist militias is ruling over most of the western region.
“Our management and marketing team are ready to deal with our existing clients and partners,” Abu Seif said in an interview Saturday in the eastern city of Al Bayda, the seat of the internationally recognised government of Abdullah Al Thinni. “We will start contacting them today,” he said, without mentioning specific companies.
Libya, holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves, has been split since last year when a coalition of Islamist militias captured Tripoli, forcing the elected government to move to the eastern region. The conflict has damaged or shut oilfields, pipelines and ports.
Force majeure may be lifted in two weeks on loadings at Es Sider, Libya’s largest export terminal, and at neighbouring Ras Lanuf, the third-largest, as militias pulled out from the region, signalling the end of a campaign they began in December to capture the two ports, said Abu Seif, whose team operates from Ras Lanuf.
He called on buyers to also coordinate with his management for loadings at the two ports under the control of the Tripoli-based government, in the western region.
Ports loading
Es Sider, with a loading capacity of 340,000 barrels a day, needs at least one month to resume exports as pipelines around storage tanks have been damaged and electrical supply cut by militia attacks, the port’s emergency team chief Abdul Wahed Al Shaikhy said by phone on Friday. Of its 19 storage tanks, 10 are intact, containing 2.14 million barrels of crude ready for export, he said. Ras Lanuf, with a loading capacity of 220,000 barrels a day, suffered no damage.
Al Thinni’s cabinet on Saturday authorised its management at NOC to open a bank account in the UAE, the Libya News Agency reported, citing a government statement. They also authorised NOC to swap crude exports for gasoline imports in order to ease a local shortage of fuel, it said.
