Libya’s National Oil Corp. (NOC) has lifted force majeure on its giant El-Sharara oil field, which accounts for about a quarter of the country’s crude oil output, and was shut down for almost three weeks. The state firm confirmed the field restart on Jan. 21 while operator Repsol confirmed El-Sharara would ramp up to 260,000 barrels of oil per day over the coming days. Before the shutdown in January, NOC had enjoyed a period of production stability, pumping an average 1.2 million b/d per month over the last year. Upstream InvestmentThe field shutdown occurred ahead of a recent conference held in Libya’s capital on Jan. 13-14. El-Sharara is operated by state Akakus Oil Operations, a joint venture of Repsol, TotalEnergies, OMV, Equinor and NOC.
