Libya on track to reach 3 million barrels per day [View all]

[tabatha]

Libya’s oil industry has revived its oil production faster than many in the industry predicted after the eight-month civil war that damaged export terminals and left oil facilities looted. Officials of the transitional government expect to reach pre-war output of 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of next month. At the centre of the push in reviving that capacity and potentially going for the 3 million bpd Libya pumped four decades ago is the country’s National Oil Corporation (NOC).

Can Libya get back up to 3 million bpd?
Yes, it’s possible. It depends on the policy of the Libyan government. But there are technical issues and economical issues and some other social issues and also infrastructure issues. Libya used to have 3 million barrels per day in the early ’70s. Then, due to bad management and a lack of investment and no re-exploration, the reservoirs were depleting very fast, and there was nobody renewing those reservoirs. So over maybe 15 years, there was no real investment in the oil – only just to keep it operating, but not real investment.

Also, we had many crises during the Qaddafi era. First we had the US sanctions in the ’80s, then we had the Lockerbie crisis. We had many because Libya was sponsoring terrorism at that time. For about 30 years it was not possible even to invite anybody to invest in Libya to do business because the environment was unstable.

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