The Chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), Farhat Bengdara said that they are aiming to boost oil production by about 8%, by December 2023.
“Avoiding field closures and steps like improving oil workers’ pay has already helped boost output by nearly a quarter since January 2022, to 1.2 million barrels a day now,” Bangdara told Bloomberg in an interview.
“North Africa’s biggest producer should be able to pump about 1.3 million barrels a day by the end of the year,” he added.
Bengdara pointed out that $17 billion of investment across 45 projects would allow the NOC to raise production to 2 million barrels a day within five years. He affirmed that the government will offer rights to develop additional fields next year.
He said that the NOC is restarting natural gas supply from the Mellitah complex after maintenance, adding that flows should remain stable for the next five years.
The NOC on Tuesday signed a $1.05 billion deal with Italy’s Eni SpA to capture flared natural gas, a project that should start operating in 2025.
“Italy’s Eni SpA and BP Plc are set to start new drilling operations by the end of 2024,” Bengdara revealed.
Notably, Libya has resumed pumping gas exports to Italy after a two-week halt, following extensive maintenance work at the Mellitah complex, north of Libya.
Italy’s Nova Agency quoted Libyan energy expert, Mahmoud Mohamed as confirming that the Mellitah complex resumed operations on Tuesday. Gas flows from Libya to Italy stopped from 30 April to 15 May, according to data from the Italian company Snam.
On Tuesday, about 3 million cubic meters of gas reached Italy, however, Libya was pumping about 7-9 million per day before the halt.
According to Nova, Libya can export up to 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year to Italy, via the Green Stream pipeline linking Sicily to Eni’s gas fields in Libya.
At the end of April, the NOC announced that the facility will temporarily halt gas production at the Mellitah Industrial Complex due to planned refurbishment work.
