Output from south-east Libyan oil fields to Marsa el-Hariga port is to be closed in four weeks if the obstruction at the port persist, a spokesman for Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) revealed.

Mohamed el-Harari noted that output from the Messla and Sarir fields had been slashed by more than half of the previous levels, as a result of the failure by a parallel NOC created by Libya's eastern government to let tankers load at Hariga.

Output from National Oil Corp (NOC) subsidiary, AGOCO's Messla and Sarir fields has been reduced to below 100,000 bpd from 230,000, as loadings at the Marsa el-

Hariga port in eastern Libya remain postponed.

The standoff over exports between the internationally backed NOC in Tripoli and a parallel version of the NOC created by a rival Libyan government in the east of the country began as a result of the eastern NOC’s unsuccessful attempt to export oil in April and has since then hindered a tanker from loading at Marsa el-Hariga port for the Tripoli NOC.

The eastern NOC had dispatched a cargo of 650,000 bbls from Hariga, but the United Nations blacklisted the tanker and it was forced to return to a western Libyan port to unload.

According to NOC Chairman, Mustafa Sanalla, those preventing exports should rethink their methods.

“The worst thing is this blockade will achieve nothing. In terms of legitimacy, which is what the blockaders want, it is a dead end,” he told Reuters.

Anita Fatunji