Libya’s Oil Production Set to Resume on October 1

After last week’s deal on the leadership of the Central Bank, Libya is set to resume crude oil production on October 1, Italian news agency Agenzia Nova reported on Monday, citing Libyan parliamentary sources.

Crude production at most Libyan oilfields has been suspended for over a month after the country’s eastern and western administrations clashed over who should be governor of the Central Bank of Libya.

At the end of last week, the rival factions reached an agreement in UN-mediated talks over the election of the Central Bank’s leadership, paving the way to restoring oil production and exports.

These have plummeted in the past month.

Stephanie Koury, the acting head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), said last Thursday, commenting on the agreement,

“I also want to emphasize the urgent need to end the closure of oil fields and disruption of oil production and export. I appreciate the commitment made by the authorities in the East to lift the closure.”

Now that the agreement has been reached, oil production in Libya is set to resume on October 1, with a full return to operations scheduled for Wednesday, October 2, according to Agenzia Nova’s sources.

Libya, which pumped about 1.2 million bpd of oil before the halt, was plunged into a deeper political crisis over the row about the leadership of the Central Bank of Libya, the only internationally recognized depository of Libya’s oil revenues.

The internationally recognized government in the capital city in the west, Tripoli, was trying to replace Sadiq Al-Kabir, the governor of the Central Bank of Libya. This has led to the latest controversy between the Eastern and Western governments and political factions, threatening again to reduce Libya’s oil production and exports.

Last week, estimates showed that crude oil exports from Libya crumbled to around 400,000 bpd in September from 1 million bpd in August.