The Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) needs a budget of $17 billion to increase national oil output to 2 million barrels per day in three to five years, its chief Farhat Bengdara said in an interview.
Bengdara told Alwasat tv on Sunday there were no obstacles to increase the output but “there is a lack of funding, not in the way it should be.”
The NOC has a plan that includes projects stabilizing production and maintaining pipelines and equipment, and projects for increasing production, Bengdara said.
The main projects that would help to increase national oil output are related to maintaining the pipelines that were installed in the 1960s, Bengdara said.
“These pipelines have expired and must be replaced,” Bengdara said, saying the issue was their “greatest challenge”.
“We promised to reach 1.3 million bpd and we have reached 1.295 million bpd before the end of the year. But we are talking about infrastructure that was built in the 1960s and had never been maintained, Bengdara added.