Petroleum / Mining in Libya
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IRAQ, 2017/08/21
OPEC boosted estimates of request for its crude this year and next amid stronger-than-expected fuel consumption and a weaker outlook for rival supply.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Nations raised forecasts for the all it needs to supply in 2017 and 2018 by about 200,000 barrels a day for each year, according to a statement from its secretariat in Vienna. Still, a rebound in Libyan production pushed the group’s output last month to the highest this year, undermining its plan to rebalance oversupplied world markets.
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BOTSWANA, 2017/05/04
Ghana and Nigeria are the first countries to respond to reports of European companies exploiting weak fuel standards in Africa. Stricter limits on the sulfur content of diesel will come into force on July 1.
Governments in West Africa are taking action to stop the import of fuel with dangerously high levels of sulfur and other toxins. Much of the so-called "dirty diesel" originates in Europe, according to a report published by Public Eye, a Swiss NGO, last year.
The report exposed what Public Eye calls the "illegitimate business" of European oil companies and commodities traders selling low quality fuel to Africa. While European standards prohibit the use of diesel with a sulfur content higher than 10 parts per million (ppm), diesel with as much as 3,000 ppm is regularly exported to Africa.
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BOTSWANA, 2016/05/11
Oil, gold, diamonds, palm oil, cocoa, timber: raw materials have long been linked to Africa in a lot of businesspeople’s minds. And in fact the continent is highly dependent on commodities: they constitute as much as 95% of some nations’ export revenues, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
But propping a country’s entire economy on commodities is risky business, like building a mountainside home on stilts. You can’t be sure about the weather, or in this case the commodities market. The current free-fall of oil prices to less than $40 a barrel is a glaring example. “The commodities cycle has tanked out,” says Austin Okere, founder of Computer Warehouse Group (CWG), a Nigerian emerging multinational financial services company. “And this time it looks additional structural than cyclical, so it’s not a matter of waiting it out. Something has to give.”
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IRAQ, 2015/07/01
Occidental Petroleum oil is looking to sell 40 % of its operations in the Middle East for eight billion Dollars, while the company seeks to invest in the Middle East unity within the framework of a broader plan to split the company. Chief Executive Officer, Steve Chazen has been speaking publicly since April about a possible transaction related to its origins in the Middle East and North Africa and in different nations from Libya to Iraq and Yemen.
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LIBYA, 2015/03/30
Forces loyal to a rival Libyan government controlling the capital Tripoli have withdrawn from frontline bases near the country's biggest oil ports, a spokesman said on Friday, raising hopes the ports may any minute at this time be reopened.
A Tripoli official said the internationally recognised government and the rival government, which have fought since December over the two biggest oil ports in eastern Libya, had reached an agreement to withdraw. He did not say whether troops had been moved from presently on.
The move, if confirmed, may pave the way to restart the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports which shut down in December due to fighting.
Libya is divided with factions allied to two governments -- the internationally recognised one in the east and the rival government in Tripoli - vying for control of territory and oil facilities.
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LIBYA, 2014/09/01
Libya’s oil production has risen to 700,000 barrels per day, a spokesman for national-run National Oil Corp (NOC) said on Sunday.
The OPEC member’s output has risen steadily in the completed few weeks as major oil ports in the east have reopened next a transaction between the government and a group of rebels who had closed them before.
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LIBYA, 2014/07/11
The oil field of al-Charara, in southern Libya, with a production capacity of 340,000 barrels/day, has resumed production next several months break, an official at the Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) said on Tuesday.
'Production has resumed at the oil port of al-Charara and will increase progressively little by little,' said the NOC spokesperson, Mohamed al-Harairi, who gave neither statistics about the present level of production, nor the circumstances under which production resumed.
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LIBYA, 2014/04/17
The Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) announced Tuesday that the Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO) has discovered a new oil deposit at a depth of 7,270 feet (1 foot = 0.3038 metres) in the Syrte basin (central Libya), saying that the new deposit will give a daily production of 1,900 barrels of oil per day, PANA reported from the Libyan capital.
A week before, a gas deposit was found in the basin of Ghadamès, in the south-west of the country.
Libya's oil reserves are estimated at about 47 billion barrels and gas at about 1,500 billion cubic metres.
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LIBYA, 2014/04/08
The oil tanker, 'Morning Glory', carrying an illegally-loaded oil from Libya has started unloading its loot at the oil refinery in Zaouia (Western Libya), local sources said.
The oil tanker started unloading the stolen crude on Friday night, said the sources.
Early in March, the oil tanker, flying a North Korean flag, illegally loaded a cargo of Libyan crude oil from the port of Al-Sidera (East), under the control of the autonomous armed groups.
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LIBYA, 2014/04/06
The Libyan government denied on Thursday that it is negotiating with armed groups controlling oil ports across the country. A statement issued in Tripoli said local and international media had said negotiations began on Wednesday between the government and a group of oil facilities guards controlling oil ports to settle the crisis, but it was not holding any conference.
Ibrahim Jodhrane, the chief of the armed groups that has for several months controlled the major ports of eastern Libya, announced on Tuesday that he had accepted negotiations for an agreement to lift the blockade of oil terminals.
The armed groups, who accused government officials of corruption in the illicit sale of crude oil in July 2013, took control of three oil ports in the east - al-Sedra, Ras Lanuf and Zueitina -, which resulted in a drop in production to less than 200,000 barrels per day against 1.5 million barrels per day before the start of the movement.
