Libya’s biggest oil company will not resume production until the war ends, and that probably holds good for producers across the country, the firm’s information director told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Abdeljalil Mohamed Mayuf said that the Arab Gulf Oil Co., responsible for more than a quarter of Libya’s former production of 1.6 million barrels a day, stopped pumping for fear of further attacks by the forces of embattled leader Moammar Gadhafi. “Everything depends on security. We can produce tomorrow but our fields would be attacked,”
Mayuf said in an interview. “We cannot put an army around each field. We are not a military company and the forces of Gadhafi are everywhere.” He said they were within 40 kilometres of the southeast fields at Messla and Sarir. “We cannot say when we will restart because it depends on this military operation and when Gadhafi leaves.” He said the decision was made after rocket attacks April 4 seriously damaged a pumping station and production facilities at southeast Messla oilfield, followed, a few days later, by hits on a pumping station halfway along the 317-mile (510-kilometres) pipeline from Messla to Tobruk port.
Eight rebels serving as guards were killed in the second attack, he said. After the attacks, rebel oil chief Wahid Bugaighis said repairs to Messla would be completed in about three weeks and they would resume pumping oil. Mayuf said Bugaighis “doesn’t know what he is talking about.”
Libya produces only a fraction of world production, with most exported to Europe, but fears of similar uprisings spreading to other oil-producing Arab nations has caused world oil prices to soar. Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa, an estimated 46.4 billion barrels as of January 2011, according to Oil and Gas Journal.
