17 September 2013, News Wires – Libya is expected to restore output to between 400,000 and 450,000 barrels per day with resumed production at El Sharara, Libya’s deputy oil minister has said.
One of the biggest oilfields in western Libya, El Sharara is to ramp up production after workers resumed pumping on Monday, Omar Shakmak said.
“Before Sharara (resumed production) it was around 230,000 barrels per day, now we’re expecting 400,000 to 450,000 barrels per day,” Shakmak told Reuters on the sidelines of an investment conference in London.
On Monday, a senior Libyan oil official said El Sharara would reach full output by Friday.
The government has been locked in talks with feuding tribes, militia and protester groups over the past two months as output collapsed to a tenth of Libya’s maximum capacity of 1.5 million barrels per day.
The worst disruption since the 2011 revolution has already cost Libya and Western companies such as Italy’s Eni and US Marathon billions of dollars in lost revenue and has contributed to a spike in global prices to a six-month high during August.
Libya is losing some $130 million a day due to the protests that have crippled the North African’s oil sector, prime minister Ali Zeidan told the same conference.
Zeidan insisted he still wanted to solve the crisis through dialogue rather than force.
“We are going to work on solving this problem. When blood is shed, the loss will be greater,” he said.
Zeidan said output was also resuming at the El Feel oilfield in southwestern Libya and that the Marsa al-Brega port had started to export again.
– Upstream