Mustafa Sanalla, head of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), admitted on 11 October that it will be “very difficult” to meet the firm’s 1.25mn b/d end-2017 oil output target. The country has lost an estimated $126bn in revenue due to the blockading of oil facilities in the past five years, while NOC has received only 25% of its 2017 budget, he says. Lack of cash has compounded the losses: the NOC chief claims that on a recent day output was 90,000 b/d lower than it would have been due to a lack of money, without specifying which fields he was referring to.
Despite these challenges, NOC is kick-starting upstream plans to boost sustainable oil and gas production in the medium to long term. In the past few weeks, NOC subsidiary Agoco has resumed drilling work, NOC has awarded exploration licenses to a new subsidiary and several service companies are reported to be either working in the country or on the point of return. (CONTINUED - 2072 WORDS)
