On Wednesday, the Al-Sarir power station in southeastern Libya began operating with natural gas for the first time in eleven years. It had been using diesel fuel for the past decade.
The announcement came after the completion of a gas pipeline and the development of the Al-Fareg field. This raised its natural gas production from 70 million to 250 million cubic feet per day.
Since it entered service in 2010, Al-Sarir was intended to operate with gas but a lack of sufficent supplies and the suspension of the pipeline resulted in the station operating with diesel.
In September 2020, Al-Sarir oil field restarted production after eastern forces lifted an eight-month blockade on energy installations.
Since mid-September, Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) gradually began lifting force majeure on oilfields. Libya’s crude oil production rose from below 100,000 bpd during the blockade to 500,000 bpd in the middle of October.
“Within a month, Libya’s production could reach 1.3 million bpd”, NOC’s Chairman Mustafa Sanalla told the Wall Street Journal last week.
