Libya Has Limited Production at Its Largest Oil Field Due to Instability
In Libya, oil production was partially stopped at the country‘s largest Sharara field on August 4 due to unauthorized entry.
The maximum capacity of Sharara is 320 thousand barrels per day. According to S&P Global Commodity Insights, production losses now range from 28-70 thousand b/s.
Sharara is a joint project of NOC, French TotalEnergies, Spanish Repsol, Austrian OMV and Norwegian Equinor.
Libya controls Africa‘s largest oil reserves, estimated at 48 billion barrels, and has ambitious plans to increase production in the medium term. In early 2024, NOC Chairman Farhat Bengdara announced plans to increase production to 2 million bpd over the next five years. However, political unrest and difficulties in attracting funding threaten this program. Protests disrupting oil and gas exports have become commonplace in Libya since the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Relative political stability has recently made it possible to keep oil production in Libya at about 1.27 million b/d, which is significantly lower than 1.6 million b/d, which was before the overthrow of the previous regime.
Libyan oil, as a rule, is light, with a low sulfur content, gives a large amount of medium distillates and gasoline, which makes it popular in the Mediterranean and Northwestern Europe.
