The Libyan Oil Ministry has called on the relevant parties to intervene and consider the demands of the people who closed the crude pumping valves of the El Sharara and El Feel oilfields lines in the southwest of the country.
NOC Chairman, Mustafa Sanalla, said: “We have been assured that a group of suspicious gangs led by the so-called Muhammad Al-Bashir Al-Qarj closed the crude pumping valves.”
Sanalla added: “The implementation of our obligations towards refiners in the oil market has become impossible, and accordingly we are obliged to declare state of force majeure, in the manner applied in the oil industry.”
The Oil Ministry said in its statement Sunday that it is following with great concern on the closure of the production lines of the El Sharara and El Feel fields, and denounces these actions that threaten the income of the Libyan people, especially in these circumstances witnessing high oil and gas prices.
The Ministry stressed that the closure taking place during this period is a prejudice to the livelihood of the Libyans, given that oil is the only income for the country.
NOC Chairman wondered: “For the benefit of whom are such closures! which came after the oil price jumped to exceeded $100 per barrel. The same gang closed these valves between 2014 and 2016.”
Sanalla pointed out that these closures coincided with the price boom, and all of these indicators confirm that they have suspicious links and moved by hidden hands to drag the country into chaos.
He said that a report was submitted to the Public Prosecution to take deterrent and accurate measures to reveal the planners, implementers and beneficiaries of this defective act.
He stressed that the next steps must be firm and governed by criminal legal standard, and they must be criminally prosecuted by the Public Prosecution.