Libya’s National Oil Corporation may declare force majeure on exports from the Zawya oil terminal as a result of drone attacks on the facility.
The Zawya terminal has a daily capacity of 120,000 barrels, sourced from the country’s largest oil field, Sharara, which can produce up to 300,000 barrels daily, Reuters noted in a report on the possibility of a force majeure declaration.
According to reports, a drone strike had destroyed a storage tank and another drone had targeted an oil blending facility at the Zawya terminal. The tank, according to the company operating the facility, had 4.5 million liters of gasoline inside. The destruction of the tank and the fuel could make a local fuel shortage more severe.
This is the third drone attack on the oil terminal over the past few days. Over the weekend, a drone crashed into a naphtha tank at the Zawya refinery, Reuters reported, causing a leak that was contained. Reports have not mentioned the attacking party. Libya’s oil infrastructure is the frequent target for various forms of pressure by groups fighting for political control.
Despite continued attacks, the National Oil Corporation seems confident it could boost Libya’s oil production from the current 1.4 million barrels daily to 2 million barrels daily by the early 2030s.
The target comes after the state company received a much-needed lifeline worth some $2 billion from the latest Libyan budget. The money will be utilized as an operating budget, NOC’s chief executive Masoud Suleman told Bloomberg earlier this month, adding that “The era of delayed funding, which used to cause problems and concerns, both for us and our partners, is now behind us.”
Just last month, NOC and Austrian energy firm OMV declared the Essar oil discovery commercially viable as OPEC’s second-largest African producer pushes to revive its industry in partnerships with the oil majors.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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