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24/ Sep’20

Three Libyan Oil Ports Open For Shipping Crude

Libya’s oil terminals at Hariga, Brega, and Zueitina are open for business and welcoming tankers to ship oil, although the biggest port and the terminal typically exporting the oil from the biggest oilfield in the country are still under force majeure.

According to an update on the ports and terminals on Thursday from Med Wave Shipping Agency in Libya, the port of Mellita is only open to ship condensates, while the biggest port in terms of capacity, Es Sider, is still closed and under force majeure. So is the Zawiya oil terminal shipping the crude produced from Libya’s largest oilfield, Sharara. The third-largest port in Libya, Ras Lanuf, is also closed and still under force majeure.

Over the weekend, Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) lifted the force majeure on the oil terminals it considered safe, and said it would restart production from certain fields and some exports of crude oil. NOC will only restart production at “safe” fields and exports from safe ports, the company said.

The head of the Libyan National Army (LNA), General Khalifa Haftar, whose troops, with help from affiliated groups, blockaded Libya’s oil ports in January, announced the end of the blockade on Friday.

On Tuesday, NOC lifted the force majeure on the Zueitina port after seeing “significant improvement in the security situation that allows the National Oil Corporation (NOC) to resume production and exports to global markets.”

“The ports of Hariga, Brega and Zueitina are therefore classified as safe ports. The remaining oil fields and ports are being evaluated according to the safety and security standards in force in the national oil sector,” NOC said on Tuesday.

Earlier this week, NOC said that it expects oil production in the country to rise to around 260,000 barrels per day (bpd) next week, up from some 100,000 bpd before the blockade of its oil ports and oilfields was lifted at the end of last week.

On Thursday, an oil tanker, Delta Hellas, was already loading crude cargo from the storage tanks at Hariga, a shipping source and an engineer at the port told Reuters.

Note*: News Source from oilprice.com