(Bloomberg) — Libya’s biggest oil field resumed production about three weeks after militias forced its stoppage, according to people familiar with the matter.
A deal was reached with the Petroleum Facilities Guard, a paramilitary force meant to protect energy facilities, that had halted operations at the Sharara field in the OPEC nation’s southwest in December, the people said on Monday. They asked not to be identified as they weren’t authorized to speak to the media. The shutdowns across the fields had lowered Libya’s total output by about 350,000 barrels a day.
The agreement will also lead to output resuming at Hamada, El Wafa and El-Feel, three other fields where it was suspended around the same time. The people didn’t give further details of the pact.
Libya’s daily production fell below 1 million barrels a day as a result of the stoppages, with authorities forced to suspend crude exports from the country’s western Zawiya and Mellitah ports. Daily oil exports in the first week of 2022 were 45% below the December average, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
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