Libya Oil Output Drops as Fighting Spreads to Third Oil Port – Bloomberg.
Libya’s oil output fell below its own consumption as fighting spread to Mellitah, a region that hosts the country’s fourth largest oil port.
National Oil Corp. already this month declared force majeure at two export terminals, Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, after an attempt by Islamist militias to capture them. Force majeure is a legal status that protects a company from liability when it can’t fulfill a contract for reasons beyond its control.
National Oil yesterday reported clashes in the Mellitah area, Libya’s westernmost oil port, without indicating whether loadings were stopped. Sitting on Africa’s largest oil reserves, the North African country produced about 1.6 million barrels a day before the 2011 rebellion that ended Muammar Qaddafi’s 42-year rule.
“National Oil Corp. is following with deep concern the events that happened over past two days in the region of Mellitah and their implications for the oil and gas complex,” the NOC said in a statement on its website yesterday. It also said it’s unable to fulfill natural gas exports contracts to Italy.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates Libya’s consumption was 239,000 barrels of oil a day in 2013. The last estimate of the country’s production, on Dec. 15, was 350,000 barrels a day, according to two people with direct knowledge of upstream operations.
