Sharjah 24 – AFP: Libya's National Oil Corporation announced Monday the closure of operations in major sites after staff in the key export terminal of Zueitina and the Al-Sharara oil field were blocked from working.
"The National Oil Corporation is obliged to declare a state of force majeure on the oil port of Zueitina, including all fields and producing stations associated with this port and shipping facilities until further notice," NOC chief Mustafa Sanalla said in a statement.
Declaring force majeure is a legal move allowing parties to free themselves from contractual obligations when factors such as fighting or natural disasters make meeting them impossible.
Libya is seeking to extricate itself from a decade of chaos and conflict that followed the toppling of Moamer Kadhafi in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising.
"These interruptions were caused by the entry of a group of individuals into the port of Zueitina," the firm said in a statement, adding that the group "prevented workers" from continuing exports.
Zueitina is one of the four oil terminals in the so-called "Oil Crescent" region, and its closure will prevent Libya from exporting almost a quarter of its 1.2 million barrels per day of production.
Sanalla added that it was the "start of a painful wave of closures" in the North African nation at a time of an "oil and gas price boom".
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