Tripoli: Libya’s eastern Hariga oil port has reopened and received a first tanker loading oil, a spokesman for state-owned National Oil Corp (NOC) said on Sunday after the government paid salaries of protesting state security guards at the terminal.
A second tanker was readying to dock but talks were continuing with protesters complaining that the Tripoli government had not met their full demands, a separate spokesman for the port operator said.
Hariga had been closed for a month by members of the state Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG) who claimed they had not been paid for months, one of many disruptions in Libya, where militias, state security guards and tribesmen seize oil facilities at will to press Tripoli into their demands.
Libya’s oil output has fallen to less than 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), down from 1.4 million bpd in July when a wave of protests started.
A first tanker loaded 750,000 barrels of oil at Hariga on Saturday and a second was expected on Sunday to load 600,000 barrels of oil, NOC spokesman Mohammad Al Harari said.
But Omar Zwei, spokesman for Arabian Gulf Oil Co (AGOCO) operating the port, said the oil guards had allowed Saturday’s docking only as a goodwill gesture after receiving their delayed salaries for March and April.
“There is another tanker waiting to load but there are discussions ongoing with the PFG to allow the tanker to start loading because they have not received their May salaries yet,” he said.
Harari also said the western El Feel oilfield, operated by NOC and Italy’s ENI, was working “normally” after a protest there ended over a week ago. It had pumped 80,000 bpd before the protest.
The NOC spokesman also said there were efforts underway to reopen the 340,000-bpd southwestern El Sharara field. Protesters at the field and connecting pipeline have blocked production several times since October.
Three years after a Nato-backed revolt toppled leader Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s oil infrastructure remains vulnerable to protests as militias who helped oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 now defy state authority.
Much of the remaining output is used to feed the Zawiya refinery which supplies the west of the country. Motorists have been queueing for more two weeks to refill in the capital Tripoli.
Last year, a group of rebels seized Hariga and three other eastern ports with the aim of exporting crude oil from there themselves. It took the government until April to reach an agreement with the rebels to relinquish Hariga and the Zueitina port and to restart exports from there, only for Hariga to be closed again last month by protesting security staff.
The rebels have kept shut the larger Ras Lanuf and Es Sider ports pending further talks with the government. A fourth eastern port, Zueitina, is technically open but there is currently no crude to load.
