London, UK | – Libya’s UN-backed government warned on Tuesday that any oil exports by a rival administration in the east would be illegal after the region’s military strongman handed over its key export ports.
“All exports by parallel institutions are illegal and any attempt will fail just as previous ones have,” said the head of Libya’s National Oil Corporation Mustafa Sanallah.
The self-styled Libyan National Army of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar announced on Monday that all future revenues from the eastern oil ports which it controls will be handed to the unrecognised administration in the east after it recaptured two of them in 10 days of deadly fighting with rival militia.
The Benghazi-based authorities made a similar attempt to bypass the Tripoli government in April 2016 but their planned sale of 300 000 barrels of crude was stopped by the UN Security Council.
