With its production targets currently under 2013 levels of 1.4 million b/d, Libya said Wednesday that it can achieve a production level of 700, 000 b/d in two months if it brought back into operations the currently shutdown key oil fields.
According to an OPEC governor Mr. Samir Salem Kamal, the government hoped to reach a target of 1.4 million b/d but said the country would miss the target. “Now as an average we’ll get 800,000-900,000 b/d if we resume production soon.” He said, adding that the government officials were in “negotiations” trying to reach a resolution with protestors that were preventing oil from oil fields to reach export terminals on the country’s northern coast.
Sharara, Elephant and other major oil fields remain shutdown amidst protests and strikes lasting one year now. The governor said that there was no way of knowing when the two oil fields could return online. Sharara is the main supply to Zawiya.
An official had earlier said that the government was comfortably supplying the Zawiya refinery without need for oil from offshore oil fields. Kamal said that the refinery was being supplied by oil exports diverted from other Libyan oil fields, including shipments from El-Jurf and Bouri offshore terminals.
Efforts to supply of the refinery from the Brega Port have been hampered by the closure of oilfields supplying Brega. The governor, however, added that fields supplying Brega port were slowly resuming production activity. He added that shutdown of the refinery was unnecessary since supply was partly coming from Jurf and Tobruk (Marsa al-Hariga), in addition to supply from Brega.
Meanwhile, Kamal has said that the Libyan role in OPEC remained intact despite the country’s slumping exports to OPEC region. He added that the country’s 76.4 billion barrels worth oil reserves were the largest in Africa, seventh largest in OPEC and 9th largest in the world. “We are still an oil producing country.” He added.
