Democratic fireball goes rolling in Libya; disrupts oil and gas operations

The growing unrest  in Libya since past few weeks has decreased Afica’s oil output by 6% and has sent Brent oil prices skyrocketing above  $105 per barrel. With Muammar Gaddafi’s orders to his security forces to sabotage the country’s oil facilities, many international oil and gas companies have already suspended their operations.

Wintershall turns off the tap…..

• Wintershall holds eight onshore fields around 1,000 kilometers southeast of Tripoli and 350 kilometers southwest of Benghazi in the Libyan Desert. It also holds  interest in the Al Jurf offshore field in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast.
• Following the unrest, Wintershall has shut down its production of much as 100,000 barrels per day.

Repsol follows suit…..

• Spain's Repsol has halted output in Libya due to unrest. A pipeline bringing Libyan natural gas to Italy was closed.

BP and Shell suspend drilling…..

• Shell holds five exploration licenses in the Sirte Basin off Libya. It has has temporarily relocated the dependents of expatriate staff outside the country.
•   BP which does not produce oil or gas in Libya but has been readying an onshore rig to start drilling in the Ghadames basin, has suspended operations.

Eni

• Italian power giant Eni S.p.A (ENI) has a historically large involvement in Libya, which constituted 14% of oil and gas production in 2009. ENI also produces significant natural gas from Libya and pipes over to the continent via the Greenstream pipeline.
•  It said that its operations and facilities in Libya haven't been affected by the political unrest in the country and production continues as normal. The company is in the process of evacuating non-essential personnel.

Libyan oil and natural gas fields and pipelines

For information about companies with operations in Libya, please click here:

http://docsearch.derrickpetroleum.com/research/q/Libya.html