Libya's western and southern regions have been suffering from long-hour power outages amid the current freezing winter cold since the kickoff of 2017

The National Oil Corporation (NOC) said it had sent the case of the shutdown of Al-Feel oilfield and Bier Terfas gas pipeline to the Attorney General’s Office in Tripoli.

A group of the southern Petroleum Facilities Guard from the Tubu tribe in Libya’s south has shut down Al-Feel oilfield and prevented the workers from resuming oil production to prolong the closure of the field after it had been shut over the last two years.

The group demanded full payment of delayed salaries by the government.

The NOC reopened Rayayna oil pipeline that pumps oil into Al-Zawiya oil refinery and Mellitah oil facility via Al-Sharara and Al-Feel oilfield last December, but the Tubu group shut down Al-Feel oilfield and impeded the resumption of oil production.

“Due to the blocking of the gas pipeline, which feeds Al-Zawiya power plant, a humanitarian catastrophe took place across Libya leading to a total blackout on Saturday evening and thus eventually causing a number of deaths due to such power outage amid the cold weather conditions, especially in southern Libya.”

The NOC wrote on its website, adding that it had started taken legal actions at the Attorney General’s office against the group.

The Chairman of the NOC, Mustafa Sanallah, announced earlier that Libya’s oil production plummeted reaching 655 thousand barrels per day (bpd) after it had jumped over 700 thousand bpd.