Libyan oil output has neared 1.1mn b/d on several occasions since the start of 2018. It averaged 1.06mn b/d in February, the highest figure since mid-2013. But ongoing political, economic and security challenges mean gains are fragile: witness ongoing outages at the remote fields in Libya’s desert southwest that have provided a third of the country’s output in recent months.
Libyan production has increased every quarter since the re-opening of key fields in late 2016 (see chart). But an outage to the 75,000 b/d Eni-operated Elephant (El Feel) field on 21 February was compounded in early March by a shutdown at Libya’s largest oil concession, 310,000 b/d-capacity Sharara, operated by the Akakus consortium led by Spain’s Repsol. Production has resumed at Sharara, but not at El Feel. (CONTINUED - 788 WORDS)
