Tripoli: Libya’s UN-backed government warned on Tuesday that any new attempt by a rival administration in the east to export oil independently will be stopped after the region’s military strongman handed it control of key ports. “Exports by parallel institutions are illegal and will fail as they have failed in the past,” said the head of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), Mustafa Sanalla.
The self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) 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 a 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 per day of crude was stopped by the UN Security Council.
“UN Security Council resolutions are very clear — oil facilities, production and exports must remain under the exclusive control of (Tripoli-based) NOC and the sole oversight of the (internationally-recognised) Government of National Accord,” Sanalla said. “We are confident that the GNA and our international partners will take the necessary steps to stop all exports in breach of international law.”
The NOC warned it would sue any company that tried to buy oil from the eastern authorities and that no purchase contract signed with them would be honoured.
“There is only one legitimate NOC, recognised by the international community and Opec,” Sanalla said, in reference to a rival NOC set up in the main eastern city of Benghazi.
The eastern administration, for its part, said it was committed to oil revenues being shared equitably and that foreign contracts would be respected.
Haftar took the surprise decision to hand control of the eastern export terminals to the Benghazi-based NOC instead of the internationally recognised state oil firm after his forces suffered heavy losses fighting to recapture two of them.
The Petroleum Facilities Guard of Ibrahim Jadhran, which had controlled the ports from 2011 until 2016 when it lost them to Haftar’s forces, wrested back control of the Ras Lanuf and Al Sidra terminals on June 14.
Haftar’s forces lost at least 16 fighters repulsing the offensive which they claimed had been funded by revenues from exports under Tripoli’s auspices. Before Jadhran’s guards were first expelled by Haftar’s forces in September 2016, they had blocked oil exports for two years due to a dispute with the NOC. — AFP
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