Libyan Oil Production Falls as US Issues Warning

FEARS of further damaging military intervention in Libya have been raised after the US demanded the resumption of oil production in the country.

Forces allied with the Libyan National Army (LNA) have been choking supply to the UN-backed government in Tripoli.

Groups loyal to General Khalifa Haftar’s LNA seized a number of large oil-export terminals on Libya’s eastern coast earlier this month, along with several southern oil fields.

Oil remains one of the main sources of revenue for the Western-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), which is based in the Libyan capital.

The Libyan National Oil Corporation warned that the closures would slash crude oil production by around 800,000 barrels a day with a daily loss of $55 million (£42m) in revenue.

Oil production was said toay to have fallen to the lowest levels since the US-led invasion and murder of former Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi in 2011.

“We are deeply concerned that the suspension of National Oil Corporation operations risks exacerbating the humanitarian emergency in Libya and inflicting further needless suffering on the Libyan people,” the US Embassy in Libya said.

The corporation’s “operations should resume immediately,” it added.

The US warning has raised fears of another damaging intervention, with Washington seeking to grab control of oil in Syria, Iran, Venezuela and other countries.

Libya has the largest-known oil reserves in Africa and the ninth-largest in the world.

Battle continues to rage between the parallel governments despite a peace conference held in Berlin earlier this week agreeing to uphold a UN arms embargo and commit to a political solution to a crisis largely of the attendees own making.

But Turkey’s authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to fuel instability by flooding Libya with thousands of jihadist mercenaries from the battlefields of Syria — a move banned under international law.