21/01/2024
Libya reports that after a more than two-week pause, production has resumed at its largest oilfield.
After protesters halted the plant due to fuel shortages, Libya's state-owned oil company began production at the nation's largest oilfield on Sunday, capping a more than two-week-long break.
In a succinct statement, the National Oil Corp. announced the lifting of the force majeure at the southern Sharara oil field and the return to full production. It didn't offer any more information. A legal strategy known as "force majeure" allows a business to escape its contractual responsibilities due to exceptional circumstances.
On January 7, the business initiated the maneuver in response to demonstrators from Ubari, a desert hamlet situated approximately 950 kilometers (590 miles) south of Tripoli, the capital, who had closed the field in protest over gasoline shortages.
The company's CEO, Farhat Bengdara, and military representatives from eastern Libya have been in negotiations with the protest organizers, Fezzan Group, for the last two weeks.
The protesters' spokesperson, Barzingi al-Zarrouk, declared that they had achieved a settlement with the corporation and had therefore halted their demonstration.
He said that the self-declared Libyan National Army, led by the formidable military leader Khalifa Hifter, mediated the deal. Much of the south and east of Libya are under the hands of Hifter's forces.
In the southwest of Fezzan, one of Libya's three ancient provinces, the demonstrators have allegedly demanded that roads and infrastructure be fixed. The field was previously shuttered for two days in July.
Light crude has long been a factor in Libya's protracted civil war, as competing militias and foreign forces compete for control of the continent's largest oil reserves.
Since the long-time tyrant Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown and killed in 2011 by an uprising supported by NATO, Libya has been in upheaval. For the majority of the last ten years, the country of North Africa has been divided between opposing eastern and western administrations, each supported by foreign governments and militias.