Libya declares force majeure on oil exports after weeks of protests and port blockades.
This is major news on its own, but also needs to be considered from Europe's perspective:
- 6% of EU oil & gas imports are from Libya and were just taken off the table.
- 34% of EU oil and 55% of gas comes from Russia, which is being throttled
- Freeport terminal in TX was blown up and cannot send LNG
- UK just announced they'd stop gas exports to EU if there were shortages
- EU and UK are both frantically burning gas just to generate electricity now, instead of storing for the winter ahead!
- Greenhouses, food plants and facilities are ALREADY SHUT DOWN due to the cost of energy — and somehow things keep blowing up! This is an absolute CONTROLLED DEMOLITION.
Europe is being strangled !!
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Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) declared force majeure on crude exports from its oil terminals amid continued blockades of production and ports, which have severely crippled Libya’s oil exports.
The force majeure comes after weeks of protests and closures amid the new rift in Libya’s political class over who should be governing the country.
The most recent rivalry is between Fathi Bashaga, the Prime Minister appointed by the parliament earlier this year, and Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who was appointed last year through a process backed by the United Nations. Dbeibah refuses to cede power. Bashaga, backed by the east-based Parliament, is now based in Sirte in the east of Libya, while Dbeibah is based in Tripoli.
Earlier this week, NOC said it was considering declaring force majeure within 72 hours unless production and shipment of oil resume in the Gulf of Sirte, which hosts the oil export terminals of Zueitina, Brega, Ras Lanuf, and Es Sider.
On Thursday, NOC’s chairman Mustafa Sanalla said that “Our patience has run out after we have repeatedly tried to avoid declaring the state of force majeure, but the implementation of our obligations has become impossible, and we are forced to declare a state of force majeure on the terminals of Asidra and Ras Lanuf, in addition to the Al-Feel field, with the continuation of the state of force majeure on the terminals of Brega and Zueitina.”
“Political difference is a right, but the mistake is to use oil, ‘the lifeblood of Libyans’ as a bargaining chip,” Sanalla said in a statement, describing the use of oil as a bargaining chip as an “unforgivable sin.”
Libya’s exports have recently ranged from 365,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 409,000 bpd, which is a decrease of 865,000 bpd compared to “normal production rates under normal circumstances,” NOC said today.
The new outage in Libya comes as the market grapples with the loss of Russian oil supply due to the Western sanctions on Moscow, and could further tighten the physical market.