The National Oil Corporation (NOC) declared Monday force majeure on El Feel oil field in southwest Libya, stressing that the circumstances that prompted it to take this measure were "beyond its control."
The NOC said in a statement that the reason for announcing this step was due to the current circumstances of crude oil production in Mellitah, which prevented it from carrying out crude oil loading operations, indicating that some of these related circumstances will affect crude oil production operations in El Feel oil field and stop them.
NOC explained that based on the provisions of force majeure in the Libyan Civil Code, it considered these circumstances to be beyond its control and couldn't be prevented, which prompted it to declare force majeure on El Feel oil field as of September 2, 2024. It noted that the force majeure would not apply to other hydrocarbon loading operations, indicating that it would notify (companies and dealers) of the return to normal operations once the circumstances that caused the force majeure disappeared.
El Feel oil field is located in southwestern Libya. It stopped production last Tuesday, a day after the Prime Minister of the parallel government, Osama Hamad, announced the cessation of production in all oil fields, in protest against the decision of the Presidential Council to change the governor of the Central Bank of Libya in Tripoli, Al-Siddiq Al-Kabir.
At the time, Reuters estimated the production of Libyan oil fields located in areas under the control of Haftar's forces at approximately 1.17 million barrels per day.
Last Friday, the NOC said that the closure of some oil fields for a period of a week had caused a loss of 63% of total production, stressing that the reasons that led to the closures "have nothing to do with the NOC." It added in a statement that the recent closures "pose a major challenge to the national economy and directly affect the lives of Libyan citizens," stressing that this sector "embodies the unity of Libya and is the backbone of its economy as well as the future of its coming generations."
