Libya's Sharara oilfield resumes output at half capacity

BENGHAZI - Libya's Sharara oilfield resumed production at half capacity on Monday after being shut down since Friday due to a valve closure, a field engineer said.

The valve was reopened on Sunday evening enabling oil to be pumped again to a refinery at the port of Zawiya, 49 km (30.4 miles) west of Tripoli, Libya's National Oil Corp (NOC) said in a statement.

NOC declared on Saturday force majeure on Sharara crude shipments at the same port.

“We are working on lifting force majeure,” a Libyan oil source told Reuters while also confirming output resumption at the field.

The shutdown caused a loss of about 290,000 barrels per day (bpd) of production worth an estimated $19 million, NOC said.

Libya’s overall oil production before the Sharara outage stood at 1.2-1.3 million bpd, NOC chief Mustafa Sanalla said earlier this month.

NOC operates Sharara in partnership with Spain’s Repsol, France’s Total, Austria’s OMV and Norway’s Equinor.