Deputy Oil Minister Omar Shakmak said that Libya expects to be back to pre-war oil production in October, which is later than previously forecast due to interruptions and the slow return of oil services firms.
Shakmak said current output was 1.56 million bpd, climbing back up after three major oil exporting terminals in the east, shut down by political protests before Libya's July 7 elections, restarted.
Local militia had enforced a 48-hour stoppage to protest against the election of a national assembly they complained did not adequately represent Libya's eastern region.
The stoppages at El-Sider, Ras Lanuf and Brega shut half of Libya's oil exporting capacity and production was also cut by 300,000 bpd as a result of blockages at the terminals.
"Interruptions will affect the achievement of the objectives," Shakmak said. "No one can guarantee this can't happen again but we should do our best to avoid it."
FUTURE PLANS
Libya plans to boost production which could reach 2 million barrels by end-2015, Shakmak said. "We're talking about the capacity of the production but the plan is that we should be able to have such production," he said.
He said there were also study proposals to upgrade the country's refineries and build two new ones, which will possibly be east, in the Tobruk area and Derna and the other one in the south.
(Source: Reuters)
