The National Oil Corporation’s (NOC) Member, Jadallah Al-Okli, said Libya’s oil output has healed after days of power outages and several logistic hurdles that led to its drop recently. According to him, Libya’s oil production has hit 715,822b/d, Libyan Express reported.
Oil output had dropped to 655,000b/d due to a balckout in mid-2January before electricity gradually returned to Libyan western fields. The power cut occurred after an unspecified group of people closed the valve of a natural gas pipeline that feeds the Zawiya power station in the western region, Bloomberg informed. The national utility GECOL stated other factors contributed to the outages, including attacks on power stations.
The North African country, that owns Africa’s largest crude reserves, is trying to revive its oil production in spite of political turmoil and conflict among armed forces competing to control Libya’s energy assets. It reopened two of its biggest fields in December, as well as a pair of oil terminals that had been closed for two years.
Libya is still pumping far less than the 1.6mb/d it produced before a 2011 uprising that set off years of instability.
The country plans to almost double output in 2017. OPEC exempted Libya from cutting production as the nation tries to restore its crude output and exports.