Libya oil output, exports hit multiyear highs

Bloomberg

Libyan oil is gushing again with production and exports surging to the highest in years. Despite unresolved domestic conflicts that first erupted after the ouster of dictator Muammar Qaddafi, Libya has somehow found a way to get its crude flowing. Already this year, it’s secured commitments from some of the world’s biggest energy companies, including at least three new annual cargo-lifting contracts and a $450 million oil-field investment from France’s Total SA.
Shipments from the holder of Africa’s biggest oil reserves last month jumped to 1.19 million barrels a day, the highest since Bloomberg began tracking tankers from the country in July 2014, and 22 percent up from January. Production jumped to the highest in 4 1/2 years.
“There are always some issues, but if you look at the term contracts being signed, Total coming back, the trend is for the return of more Libyan crude,” said Olivier Jakob, an analyst at Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Switzerland. “On the way, there will always be some issues with protests, but the medium-term is that they will increase their production level.”
The country’s observed exports jumped from 969,000 barrels a day in January. February’s outflow would actually exceed production for the month, which stood at a 1.05 million barrels a day, the highest since June 2013, according to a Bloomberg survey. While it’s rare, an individual country’s shipments can sometimes briefly rise above its output due to the timing of when vessels leave, or if cargoes are loaded from storage. Further growth in Libyan oil supplies would take the country to a level that could test a pledge it made to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to help limit a global crude glut. Alongside Nigeria, the two African nations are meant to cap their combined output at 2.8 million barrels a day.