Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

Libya plans to re-open an oil pipeline to the port of Hariga in a week as the state producer says it will stop pumping at all fields if authorities fail to contain attacks that have cut output to the lowest in a year.

A fire at the pipeline that carries crude from the Sarir and Mesla fields to the eastern port has been extinguished, Mohamed Elharari, a National Oil spokesman, said by phone Sunday. The North African country’s production was cut by 180,000 barrels a day after the blaze, he said previously.

“If these incidents continue, National Oil Corp. will regrettably be forced to stop all operations at all fields in order to preserve the lives” of workers, the company said in a statement on its website over the weekend. “National Oil Corp. urges the Ministry of Defense and the Petroleum Facilities Guard to take the appropriate measures to protect oil sites.”

Libya, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, produced 1.6 million barrels a day before the 2011 rebellion that ended Muammar Qaddafi’s 42-year rule. It pumped 350,000 barrels a day in January, Elharari said at the time, and output has probably dropped to less than 200,000 a day after the pipeline fire.

National Oil has a majority share in all of Libya’s oil and gas producing ventures. It holds a 59 percent stake in the company that operates Bahi, an oil field that came under attack on Friday, partnering with Marathon Oil Corp., ConocoPhillips and Hess Corp., according to a statement about the attack.

Pipeline Bombing

National Oil has said it’s neutral in the conflict, which pits the Islamist-backed government that captured Tripoli last year against one that fled to the eastern region. The Petroleum Facilities Guard is loyal to the internationally recognized administration of Abdullah al-Thinni.

The bombing of the pipeline followed attacks on fields in central Libya that Ali al-Hasy, a spokesman for the guards, blames on a local branch of Islamic State, the group that has proclaimed a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria and is being fought by a U.S.-led coalition of Arab and Western nations.

Islamic State is expanding in Libya and has created its own institutions in the eastern city of Derna, the Center for Security Policy said on its website, citing U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant-General Vincent Stewart’s testimony to the Senate last week.

Tank Fire

The Islamist-backed government publicly ordered an offensive in December by militias called Libya Dawn that caused a fire on storage tanks at Es Sider, Libya’s largest oil port. It distanced itself from an attack this month on the al-Mabruk field, in central Libya, south of the city of Sirte. More than 10 guards were killed and three workers from the Philippines taken hostage, according to Libyan officials.

Qaddafi’s hometown, Sirte, came under attack on Saturday by an armed group that seized government buildings including the social security, passport delivery department, hospitals and radio and television stations, the Libyan News Agency reported, citing its own correspondent. The workers were told to leave, it said, without identifying the assailants.

“Libya Dawn is saying it has nothing to do with the latest attacks but we see they have arrangement of convenience; Islamic State is doing what the Dawn militias have attempted to do and failed,” said al-Hasy at the petroleum guards.

Should the flow to Hariga terminal from the Mesla and Sarir fields in eastern Libya remain closed because of the pipeline attack, Libya would be relying on its offshore production, from the Jurf and Bouri reservoirs, to continue oil exports. Elephant, its main onshore field that’s still in operation, is in western Libya.