Libya’s oil production will resume on October 1

After last week’s agreement on the leadership of the Central Bank, Libya is to resume crude oil production on October 1, Italian news agency Agenzia Nova reported on Monday, citing Libyan parliamentary sources.

Crude production at most of Libya’s oil fields has been suspended for more than a month after the country’s eastern and western administrations clashed over who should be governor of Libya’s Central Bank.

At the end of last week, the rival factions reached an agreement in UN-brokered talks on choosing the leadership of the Central Bank, paving the way for the restoration of oil production and exports.

They have decreased in the last month.

Stephanie Koury, acting head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), said last Thursday, commenting on the agreement:

“I also want to emphasize the urgent need to end the shutdown of oil fields and the disruption of oil production and export. I appreciate the commitment made by the authorities in the East to lift the closure.”

Now that the agreement has been reached, oil production in Libya is scheduled to resume on October 1, and a full return to operations is scheduled for Wednesday, October 2, according to Nova Agency sources.

Libya, which pumped about 1.2 million barrels a day of oil before the shutdown, has been plunged into a deeper political crisis over the row over the leadership of the Central Bank of Libya, the only internationally recognized depository of Libya’s oil revenues.

The internationally recognized government in the western capital, Tripoli, was seeking to replace Sadiq Al-Kabir, the governor of Libya’s Central Bank. This led to the latest controversy between Eastern and Western governments and political factions, again threatening to cut Libya’s oil production and exports.

Last week, estimates showed Libya’s crude oil exports fell to about 400,000 bpd in September from 1 million bpd in August.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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