After agreement oil exports from eastern port of Hariga resume

The Seachance, a tanker that had been blocked from loading oil for three weeks, is now loading 600,000 barrels of oil for shipment to the UK, both port and oil officials said.

Exports from Hariga were blocked earlier this month as the result of a dispute between the eastern and western-based rival National Oil Companies (NOC). The two heads of the rival NOCs met in Vienna and reached an agreement in principle to resume shipments. Earlier, at the end of April, the eastern branch had loaded the Indian-flagged Distya Ameya with oil that was not exported through the Tripoli-based NOC that is recognized by international trades and governments as the sole legitimate exporter of Libyan oil. The tanker was blacklisted by the UN and eventually returned from near Malta, where it could not land, to a western Libyan port under control of the Government of National Accord (GNA) with which the Tripoli-based company cooperates. Blocking the Seachance from loading was probably a response to the actions taken against the Ameya. The Seachance is a Maltese-flagged tanker and the oil it is to load was sold to Glencore for export to the UK.

The dispute is a lose-lose situation for both sides. Neither party is receiving any revenue from the export of oil and the dispute resulted in lower production because of lack of storage facilities at Hariga. The total production in Libya now is about 200,000 barrels a day compared to production of 1.6 million barrels per day before Gadaffi was toppled in 2011. Details of what exactly was decided have not been released. Reuters also reported that Brega port loaded a tanker with 600,000 barrels of oil for shipment to Italy.

AL-Khaleej Al-Arabi Oil Company, that is in charge of Al-Hariga port and nearby oil fields, claimed that more funds were needed to buy maintenance equipment, and pump and power generating stations. The budgeting process needed to be quicker. An official in the Tripoli-based NOC said the two rival parties agreed on resuming exports from AL-Hariga to maintain operating condition of the pipelines and to avoid a looming cash crisis.

.Nagi Emagrabi, the chair of the eastern-based NOC said: "We agreed to keep the National Oil Company neutral away from political conflicts. " Up until the creation of the Government of National Accord (GNA), the NOC had exported both from the Tripoli-based Salvation General National Congress (GNC) controlled-areas and those under control of the HoR. The revenues were divided. With the GNA now recognized as the sole legitimate Libyan government no revenues would go to the HoR. The agreement comes as the recent statement coming out of VIenna warned officials of the GNA , governments, and companies only to deal with officials of the GNA and not "parallel" but unrecognized institutions. Fortunately, officials of the Tripoli-based NOC paid no attention to this directive with the positive result that Libya will be able to export more oil.

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