Libya natural gas production has decreased by 8 percent due to the progressive depletion of existing wells, according to the country’s Audit Bureau.
The North African country’s gas output was 861.96 billion cubic feet in 2022 (24.40 billion cubic meters), or 79.73 billion cubic feet (2.25 billion cubic meters) less than set target of 941.7 billion cubic feet (26.6 percent).
But production net of other items such as flaring (the wasteful combustion of gas that is released spontaneously in the extraction phase, a highly polluting phenomenon widespread especially in eastern Libya) is much lower, equal to around 12- 15 billion cubic meters of gas: this is also due to infrastructure deficiencies, lack of maintenance and the political divisions that have afflicted the North African country for years.
Theoretically, Libya can export up to 10 billion cubic meters of gas to Italy per year, but in 2022 the total quantity exported to Italy via the Greenstream gas pipeline did not exceed 2.48 billion cubic meters, equal to 10 percent of total gross production: certainly not an exciting figure and which could certainly be improved by discovering new deposits, focusing on energy from renewable sources to satisfy the internal demand for electricity (currently totally dependent on fossil fuels) and reducing waste.
In this regard, it is worth remembering that in the summer Saipem was awarded a contract worth approximately 1 billion dollars with Mellitah Oil & Gas BV Libyan Branch, a consortium made up of National Oil Corporation of Libya and Eni North Africa, for the development of Bouri Gas Utilization Project (BGUP).
In particular, the contract involves the engineering, procurement, fabrication, installation and commissioning of an approximately 5,000 tonne gas recovery module (GRM) on the existing DP4 offshore structure, together with the installation of 28 kilometers of pipelines connecting the DP3, DP4 and Sabratha platforms.