Attack closes oil ports, cuts production
BENGHAZI: The major Libyan oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider were closed and evacuated yesterday after armed brigades opposed to the powerful eastern commander Khalifa Haftar stormed them, causing a production loss of 240,000 barrels per day (bpd).
At least one storage tank at Ras Lanuf terminal was set alight following the early morning attack, an engineer said. Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) declared force majeure on loadings from both terminals.
The clashes, between forces loyal to Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) and rival armed groups, continued throughout the day south of Ras Lanuf, where the LNA was targeting its opponents with air strikes, local sources said.
Military sources said the LNA had withdrawn from both ports.
The LNA took control of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf along with other oil ports in Libya’s oil crescent in 2016, allowing them to reopen after a long blockade and significantly lifting Libya’s oil production.
More than half the storage tanks at both terminals were badly damaged in previous fighting and have yet to be repaired, though there have been regular loadings from Es Sider.
NOC said it had evacuated all staff from the two terminals ‘‘as a precautionary measure’’. The immediate production loss was about 240,000 bpd and the entry of a tanker due at Es Sider yesterday was postponed, it said.
NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla said the output loss was expected to rise to 400,000 bpd if the shutdown continued, calling it a ‘‘national disaster’’ for oildependent Libya.
A military source said the threepronged attack was launched by the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB), a group that has previously tried to take the oil crescent and advance on Benghazi, which has been fully controlled by Haftar since late last year.
The NOC blamed Ibrahim Jathran, who headed an armed group that blockaded oil crescent terminals for three years before being forced out by the LNA. He appeared in a video posted on social media yesterday announcing the start of a campaign.
‘‘We announce the preparation of our ground forces and supporting forces in the oil region, and our objective is to overturn the injustice for our people over the past two years,’’ he said, standing in a camouflage jacket in an unidentified desert area.
The NOC says Jathran’s previous blockades cost Libya tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue. He is sought by judicial authorities in Tripoli for the blockades and attempts to export oil independently.
Repeated previous attempts by the LNA’s opponents to retake the oil crescent have failed, and it is unclear how much military and local, tribal support Jathran or BDB forces currently have.
However, the LNA, which is the dominant force in eastern Libya and rejects an internationally recognised government in the capital, Tripoli, stirred some resentment with arrests when it moved into the oil crescent in 2016, and has recently been stretched thin.
Since last month it has been waging a campaign to take control of Derna, the last city in the east to elude its control.
The military source said yesterday’s clashes were not affecting any oilfields and LNA had at least five men killed and about six wounded. — Reuters