Sharara oil field reopened

Libyan Cloud News Agency – Tripoli

The National Oil Corporation (NOC) has confirmed the return of production at the Sharara oil field, south of the country.

The reopening of Sharara was done after lengthy negotiations by the NOC to reopen the Hamada valve, which had been illegally closed last January- resulting in the shutdown of production and collapse of the tank (Surge Tank D101 B), whose capacity is 16,000 barrels and is situated in area (GOSP115) at the field, after an armed militia prevented NOC’s maintenance teams from carrying out maintenance operations.

“The Libyan economy has suffered enough from the illegal blockades and we have much to do, and we hope that the restart of production at the Sharara oil field will be a first step to reviving the Libyan oil and gas sector and preventing an economic collapse in Libya in these difficult times”. NOC chairman, Mustafa Sanalla, stated.

According to NOC, the first production phase will start at a capacity of 30,000 barrels/day. Production at the field is expected to return to full capacity within 90 days due to the damages resulted by very long shutdown .

The illegal blockade for a period of 142 days cost the public treasury losses estimated at about USD 5,269,251,172.00 billion.