The Libyan Minister of Oil and Gas, Mohammed Oun, denied the presence of the Russian Wagner Group forces in the Libyan oil fields and ports.
“Personally, I visited the Brega Oil Marketing Company and Sirte Oil and Gas Manufacturing Company, and I visited Zilten and al-Tahaddi fields. No foreigners were there, neither Wagner or any other foreign force,” the Minister said in a televised interview on Friday.
“There can be no mercenaries, given that the General Department of International Marketing, based in Tripoli, is the one that monitors and supervises the daily production operations and provides us with daily reports of the quantities produced,” Oun confirmed.
“It is hard to believe what the BBC broadcasted,” he said, referring to a BBC report claiming that Wagner was present in oil fields and terminals.
“The Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG), in the East and West, is the one that is in charge of securing and guarding the facilities. We do not have any reports either from PFG or Industrial Security Service about the presence of Wagner,” the Minister added.