Nine oil tankers have been booked so far to load about 1 million barrels a day of crude oil in Libya next week, according to data from Poten & Partners Inc.
The ships have been chartered to pick up 970,000 metric tons, the equivalent of about 7.1 million barrels, the New York- based shipbroker’s figures show. That is up from 375,000 tons in the week ended February 4.
According to Ahmed El-Mihoub, a marketing official in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, Libya’s state-run National Oil Corp., NOC, had planned to export 12.7 million barrels of crude in the week to Wednesday.
The absence of Libyan production helped crude traded in London reach a 2011 high of $127.02 a barrel in April. Bloomberg has reported that the benchmark Brent grade has since dropped 12 percent to $112.31.
The resumption of the nation’s supply has been followed by Iran’s threat to block the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf passageway for about 20 percent of globally traded oil, renewing supply concerns.
(Source: Tripoli Post)
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