Libya to resume normal oil production as protesters agree to lift blockades
SMA NEWS – TRIPOLY
Libya will resume oil production at all shuttered fields and ports, the Tripoli government’s newly installed head of the National Oil Corporation said after meeting groups that have blockaded the installations for months.
Farhat Bengdara’s announcement on Friday came after a meeting in the eastern city of Benghazi with tribal elders representing the groups involved in the blockade.
The lifting of the blockade could restore an estimated 850,000 barrels per day of Libyan oil output.
The blockade was imposed by groups allied with Libya’s House of Representatives parliament, one of the country’s two rival power centres, based in the east.
Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, head of the interim Government of National Unity based in Tripoli, appointed Mr Bengdara as NOC chairman on Tuesday.
The decision was challenged by Mustafa Sanalla, who had held the post since 2014, and Mr Bengdara was only able to enter the NOC headquarters on Thursday after an armed force was sent there.
The move was also rejected by the House of Representatives, which considers Mr Dbeibah’s mandate to have ended after national elections that his government was appointed to oversee were not held in December as scheduled, amid disputes over the process. The parliament appointed a new government led by former foreign minister Fathi Bashagha in March, but Mr Dbeibah has said his government would not step down until elections are held.
Mr Dbeibah’s sacking of Mr Sanalla has further raised tensions in the country that threaten to derail international efforts to end years of political turmoil and warfare following the overthrow of the dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Libyan political delegates met in the Congo’s capital Brazzaville on Thursday and Friday in preparation for reconciliation talks aimed at holding elections.
Representatives of the Libyan parliament; a presidential council appointed under UN auspices; and Saif Al Islam Qaddafi, the former dictator’s eldest son, attended the meeting.
