Libya’s electricity grid suffered another major collapse on Monday, knocking power plants offline across western, central and southern parts of the country, shutting down the Great Man-Made River water system, fueling widespread public anger in a country already divided between rival power centers.
The Zawiya, Khoms and Ubari power plants went offline, with large parts of western and central Libya losing electricity. The Libya Herald reported that it was the third major blackout to hit western Libya in two days. The cause of Monday’s simultaneous outages has not been established.
The failure also spread to the water system. The Great Man-Made River Authority said electricity cuts forced all pumping stations under its control to stop operating, including the wellfields and the Tarhouna pumping station. The network supplies much of Libya’s population with water from underground aquifers deep inside the Sahara.
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Weeks of outages have triggered demonstrations, road blockades and closures of government institutions, including protests directed at Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s Government of National Unity in Tripoli.
That public anger is becoming increasingly dangerous for the political arrangement that has divided Libya between Dbeibah’s government in the west and the Haftar family’s power base in the east. The rival camps have maintained an uneasy equilibrium that gives both sides access to state institutions and the country’s oil revenues. Washington has been trying to turn that arrangement into a more formal political settlement while encouraging U.S. oil companies to expand in the country.
Libya’s deteriorating energy system is now putting additional pressure on that fragile alliance from the public.
Protesters stormed the Mellitah oil and gas complex in late July, temporarily disrupting production at the El Feel and Wafa fields and interfering with gas supplies used for electricity generation. Libya then suffered a series of drone attacks around the Zawiya energy hub this month, including strikes on oil infrastructure and a major attack that left more than 700 MW of the 1,300-MW Zawiya plant unavailable.
The National Oil Corporation warned last week that continued attacks could force it to declare force majeure on exports from Zawiya.
Libya is producing around 1.4 million barrels per day and wants to raise output to 2 million bpd in the early 2030s. But the same oil revenues that have helped enrich Libya’s rival political camps have yet to filter down into basic, reliable electricity service.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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