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Libya sticks to plans to boost output by 50 pct after OPEC deal
Mustafa Sanalla, the head of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), gestures during a meeting with members of the east's House of Representatives and officials from NOC at Arabian Gulf Oil Company, in Benghazi, Libya, October 24, 2016. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori
03/12/2016
ROME/LONDON (Reuters) - Libya, which was exempt from OPEC production cuts this week, is sticking with plans to raise output in the near future by 50 percent, state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Friday.
"Currently our production is 600,000 barrels per day. We aim to double that. We think we will get to 900,000 barrels" in the near future, NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla said at a conference in Rome on Friday.
The increase depends on lifting a blockade at pipelines serving the western fields of El Feel and Sharara.
Libyan oil officials told Reuters that while talks with local tribes blocking the pipelines were moving forward, there was no clear indication yet when the oil will flow again.
Libya was exempt from a deal the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries reached this week to curtail its collective output to 32.5 million bpd.
Under the deal, OPEC used a conservative figure of 351,000 bpd as a "reference production level" for Libya, well below its October production level of 528,000 bpd in the most recent monthly OPEC report.
(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli in Rome and Ahmad Ghadddar in London, writing by Isla Binnie and Ahmad Ghaddar; editing by Susan Thomas)
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