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Libya
Chris Stephen
Tunis
14 November 2017
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Libya's meddling militias

Violence and political disputes are preventing Libya's oil production settling back to pre-conflict levels

The chairman of Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC), Mustafa Sanallah, has called for criminal charges against militias blocking oil infrastructure, with a series of armed seizures threatening to derail his production recovery plan. Sanallah has earned plaudits for hiking production up to near 1m barrels a day, a four-fold increase in a year, in the teeth of civil war and chaos. But his plan to hit 1.25m b/d by the end of 2017, short of the pre-war 1.6m b/d figure, risks being derailed by Libya's ubiquitous militias as well as lack of investment. Sanallah made his call for prosecutions after the militia guarding the largest field, Sharara, shut it down on 30 September demanding back-wages

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