Libya’s government vowed to prevent a tanker from leaving a rebel-held oil port as it struggles to reassert control over the nation’s main revenue source.
The vessel arrived on March 8 in Es Sider, the nation’s largest oil-export terminal, after Libyan armed forces refused government orders to fire on the ship, Prime Minister Ali Zaidan said in Tripoli, the capital.
Air force officers told Zaidan they didn’t want to risk harming civilians or causing an oil spill, the Libya Herald newspaper reported. Navy vessels have moved to stop the tanker from leaving, Culture Minister Habib Lamin told a news conference yesterday.
“The government should now actively seek a solution” with rebels in the self-proclaimed eastern region of Barqa, Asma Sraibah, a member of parliament, said yesterday in a telephone interview in the capital city. “It would be a disaster if the government loses its main source of revenue.”
Libya’s inability to restore oil exports from its eastern terminals is among the reasons Citigroup Inc. raised its 2014 forecast for Brent crude to $103 a barrel from $93 a barrel on Feb. 25.
The country is pumping about 275,000 barrels a day compared with 1.4 million barrels a day last July, when four of its nine crude-exporting ports were shut by forces led by Ibrahim Al Jedran, a former commander of the Petroleum Facilities Guard and founder of the Barqa Executive Office.
The head of Libya’s General National Congress ordered the creation of a military force to “liberate the oil ports,” congress spokesman Omar Homaidan was cited by state-run LANA news agency as saying today. The mission will begin within a week from March 8, the day the order was issued, according to LANA.
U.S.‘Concerned’
The loading of illicitly obtained oil at Es Sider violates Libya’s sovereignty, United Nations envoy to Libya Tarek Mitri told the Security Council in New York today.
Any company that buys the ship’s cargo “violates Libya’s full sovereignty” and doing so amounts to smuggling, Ibrahim Dabbashi, the nation’s ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council today.
The U.S. State Department said it was “deeply concerned” that the tanker was loading crude without the authorization of a U.S.-Libyan joint venture that produced it. Any buyers of this oil would incur penalties, the State Department said in a statement yesterday.
Brent futures trading on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange fell 0.9 percent to $107.97 a barrel at 4:49 p.m. local time.
Interrupt Flow
Crude loading from Es Sider “would be significant for the oil market if it becomes regular,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai, said yesterday in a phone interview. The eastern government’s goal “is to make this regular, but it will be very difficult as Tripoli will try to interrupt the flow.”
Petroleum Facilities Guard Chief Idris Bukhamada said his unit was ordered to stop the tanker from sailing, local TV station Al Nabaa reported today. Four naval vessels and 13 fishing boats equipped with anti-aircraft guns deployed around Es Sider, Libya Herald reported, without giving additional details about the flotilla.
The eastern government demands that Barqa, the local name for the Cyrenaica region that usually produces more than half of the country’s oil, receive 15 percent of national crude revenue. Zaidan says he can’t commit to an agreement before the adoption of a new constitution.
Not a Challenge
“This is not a challenge to the government,” Aberabba Al Baraasi, chairman of the Executive Office for the Barqa Region, said at a March 8 ceremony to welcome the tanker at Es Sider. “We tried to reach an agreement, but the government hasn’t been forthcoming.”
Mohamed Elharari, a spokesman at the state-run National Oil Corp., identified the ship yesterday as the North Korea-flagged Morning Glory, with a capacity of 350,000 barrels. It changed name from the Gulf Glory on Feb. 27 and also started flying the Asian country’s flag on that date too, having previously flown the flag of Liberia, he said.
There is another tanker with the name Morning Glory that is unrelated to the one off Libya’s coast.
Name Change
The registered owner of the Gulf Glory is Sea Pride Shipping Inc. in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, according to a European Commission database.
“Sea Pride Shipping can confirm it is the registered owner of the vessel Gulf Glory but is currently in dispute with the vessels operators,” Sea Pride said in a statement distributed by MTI Network, an external communications company.
“Sea Pride Shipping currently has no operational control over the vessel, including where she operates and what cargo she may be carrying.”
The ship’s cargo would be valued at about $38 million at the current price for Brent crude, the benchmark for Es Sider grade. The crude loaded on the tanker belongs to the Waha Oil Co., a joint venture between the NOC, Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO), Hess Corp. (HES) and ConocoPhillips (COP), according to the state-owned company.
Libya, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, holds Africa’s largest oil reserves. It produced about 1.6 million barrels a day before the rebellion that ended Muammar al-Qaddafi’s four-decade rule in 2011.
bloomberg.com
The vessel arrived on March 8 in Es Sider, the nation’s largest oil-export terminal, after Libyan armed forces refused government orders to fire on the ship, Prime Minister Ali Zaidan said in Tripoli, the capital.
Air force officers told Zaidan they didn’t want to risk harming civilians or causing an oil spill, the Libya Herald newspaper reported. Navy vessels have moved to stop the tanker from leaving, Culture Minister Habib Lamin told a news conference yesterday.
“The government should now actively seek a solution” with rebels in the self-proclaimed eastern region of Barqa, Asma Sraibah, a member of parliament, said yesterday in a telephone interview in the capital city. “It would be a disaster if the government loses its main source of revenue.”
Libya’s inability to restore oil exports from its eastern terminals is among the reasons Citigroup Inc. raised its 2014 forecast for Brent crude to $103 a barrel from $93 a barrel on Feb. 25.
The country is pumping about 275,000 barrels a day compared with 1.4 million barrels a day last July, when four of its nine crude-exporting ports were shut by forces led by Ibrahim Al Jedran, a former commander of the Petroleum Facilities Guard and founder of the Barqa Executive Office.
The head of Libya’s General National Congress ordered the creation of a military force to “liberate the oil ports,” congress spokesman Omar Homaidan was cited by state-run LANA news agency as saying today. The mission will begin within a week from March 8, the day the order was issued, according to LANA.
U.S.‘Concerned’
The loading of illicitly obtained oil at Es Sider violates Libya’s sovereignty, United Nations envoy to Libya Tarek Mitri told the Security Council in New York today.
Any company that buys the ship’s cargo “violates Libya’s full sovereignty” and doing so amounts to smuggling, Ibrahim Dabbashi, the nation’s ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council today.
The U.S. State Department said it was “deeply concerned” that the tanker was loading crude without the authorization of a U.S.-Libyan joint venture that produced it. Any buyers of this oil would incur penalties, the State Department said in a statement yesterday.
Brent futures trading on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange fell 0.9 percent to $107.97 a barrel at 4:49 p.m. local time.
Interrupt Flow
Crude loading from Es Sider “would be significant for the oil market if it becomes regular,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai, said yesterday in a phone interview. The eastern government’s goal “is to make this regular, but it will be very difficult as Tripoli will try to interrupt the flow.”
Petroleum Facilities Guard Chief Idris Bukhamada said his unit was ordered to stop the tanker from sailing, local TV station Al Nabaa reported today. Four naval vessels and 13 fishing boats equipped with anti-aircraft guns deployed around Es Sider, Libya Herald reported, without giving additional details about the flotilla.
The eastern government demands that Barqa, the local name for the Cyrenaica region that usually produces more than half of the country’s oil, receive 15 percent of national crude revenue. Zaidan says he can’t commit to an agreement before the adoption of a new constitution.
Not a Challenge
“This is not a challenge to the government,” Aberabba Al Baraasi, chairman of the Executive Office for the Barqa Region, said at a March 8 ceremony to welcome the tanker at Es Sider. “We tried to reach an agreement, but the government hasn’t been forthcoming.”
Mohamed Elharari, a spokesman at the state-run National Oil Corp., identified the ship yesterday as the North Korea-flagged Morning Glory, with a capacity of 350,000 barrels. It changed name from the Gulf Glory on Feb. 27 and also started flying the Asian country’s flag on that date too, having previously flown the flag of Liberia, he said.
There is another tanker with the name Morning Glory that is unrelated to the one off Libya’s coast.
Name Change
The registered owner of the Gulf Glory is Sea Pride Shipping Inc. in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, according to a European Commission database.
“Sea Pride Shipping can confirm it is the registered owner of the vessel Gulf Glory but is currently in dispute with the vessels operators,” Sea Pride said in a statement distributed by MTI Network, an external communications company.
“Sea Pride Shipping currently has no operational control over the vessel, including where she operates and what cargo she may be carrying.”
The ship’s cargo would be valued at about $38 million at the current price for Brent crude, the benchmark for Es Sider grade. The crude loaded on the tanker belongs to the Waha Oil Co., a joint venture between the NOC, Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO), Hess Corp. (HES) and ConocoPhillips (COP), according to the state-owned company.
Libya, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, holds Africa’s largest oil reserves. It produced about 1.6 million barrels a day before the rebellion that ended Muammar al-Qaddafi’s four-decade rule in 2011.
bloomberg.com
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