A tanker had to leave Libya’s Hariga export terminal without oil after members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard stopped the vessel from loading crude amid an ongoing strike over delayed salary payments, a source with knowledge of the situation told Bloomberg on Monday. In just a few months, Libya has managed to restore its oil production back to 1.25 million bpd, the level the OPEC member exempted from the OPEC+ cuts was pumping before the eighth-month-long oil port blockade in January 2020. According to Bloomberg’s source, the Front Cruiser tanker of the Suezmax type had to leave the port of Hariga without loading oil because of the strike of the security guards. In early January, petroleum facilities guards at the Hariga oil port in eastern Libya also delayed the loading of at least one crude oil cargo and were threatening to block exports until their demands to be paid their salaries are met. A leak that forced the shutdown of an oil pipeline reduced Libyan oil production by as much as 200,000 bpd for a week, while the Petroleum Facilities Guard briefly shut down the Hariga oil port after the National Oil Corporation delayed the payment of salaries for its members.

Source: Libya Today February 08, 2021 20:26 UTC