Libya protests disrupt oil loading at two major ports

Local protesters blocked crude oil loadings at Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports in Libya on Tuesday, five engineers and a shipping source told Reuters, putting about 450,000 barrels per day of exports at risk.

In a statement addressed to the country’s state-run National Oil Corporation (NOC) dated 5 January, the protesters demanded the relocation of several oil company headquarters to the Oil Crescent region, calling for fair development of their coastal area to improve living conditions.

Ports in Libya’s hydrocarbon-rich Oil Crescent include Es Sider, Brega, Zueitina and Ras Lanuf, accounting for about half of the total exports from the country, while several oil companies are based in the capital Tripoli.

“All we want is equality,” one of the protesters, Houssam El Khodor, told Reuters. “The oil is produced in our regions and all we get from it are the toxic fumes.”

An NOC spokesperson did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

The disruption comes as the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of which Libya is a member, is due to discuss its policy of gradually increasing oil output after US President Donald Trump’s calls for the organisation to lower oil prices.

NOC said on social media on Tuesday that its crude production had reached more than 1.4 million bpd, about 200,000 bpd short of its pre-civil war high. It was not immediately clear if the protests had affected production so far.

A loading programme seen by Reuters showed that Es Sider was on track to export about 340,000 bpd of crude in January, with another 110,000 bpd slated to ship from Ras Lanuf.

Brent crude prices were up 61 cents at $77.69 a barrel by 12.32 GMT, with analysts citing the Libya outage as one of the reasons for the rise, although weak China manufacturing data and warmer weather in the northern hemisphere kept prices near two-week lows.

Protests have previously disrupted oil operations in Libya, forcing the shutdown in August last year of about 700,000 bpd of production in a dispute over the position of the central bank governor. The shutdowns lasted for more than a month, with production gradually resuming from early October.

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