The head of Libya's transitional government, Fathi Bashagha, announced Tuesday that the country's nearly month-long blockade of oil ports and fields had been lifted.
"The efforts of Libya's parliament and government to open the oil fields and ports have been successful," he wrote on his Twitter account. According to Bashagha, protesters eventually agreed to lift the siege on all oil facilities, which had lasted since mid-April because of political disagreements.
One of the main export ports of Libya's "oil crescent," Zuwetina, reopened a week ago. Oil shipment became possible after Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) temporarily lifted the force majeure regime at the port on May 1 after it reached an agreement with the protesters. NOC warned that if the shutdown continues, the situation could turn into an "environmental disaster" because the infrastructure of the transport lines and storage tanks are completely worn out.
The Zuwetina port shut down under pressure from oil shipment protesters on April 17. At the time, a group of people speaking on behalf of the Zuwetina oil district community announced a suspension of oil exports from the port until Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh handed over power to the new head of government elected by parliament, Fathi Bashagha. In addition, the people demanded a "fair distribution of oil revenues". They demanded the resignation of NOC head Mustafa Sanalla, accusing him of "criminally transferring oil revenues to Dbeibeh's government in violation of parliamentary decisions.
Following Zuwetina, the port of Brega was shut down, a state of force majeure was declared in the country's largest oil fields El Sharara and El Fil after stopping oil production there under the pressure of the protesters. A declaration of force majeure implies the occurrence of force majeure circumstances, leading to the suspension of work at the site, and state agencies are not legally liable for failure to fulfill oil contracts.
Economists estimate that the country's daily financial losses from the forced suspension of oil production and blockage of export ports exceeded $150 million, and for eight months, due to sabotage and acts of sabotage on the oil infrastructure, each time leading to a halt in hydrocarbon production, the Libyan economy, according to the Central Bank, has been damaged in $100 billion.
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Based on materials from TASS