Libyan oil companies halt work amid rising Covid-19 infections

Oil companies affiliated with the Libya’s state-run National Oil Corporation have halted some work on their fields and sent workers home after the country recorded a surge in coronavirus cases.

Arabian Gulf Oil Company, an affiliate, has suspended work for 30 days to “protect workers from the pandemic”, NOC said.

The country’s largest refinery, Zawiya, has put a tenth of its employees on emergency leave.

The companies said the move was precautionary and not brought on by an outbreak among staff.

Libya, an Opec producer, has registered 18,834 infections, resulting in 296 deaths as of Tuesday, according to Worldometer. It has also recorded one of the highest daily increase in cases recently.

Globally, Covid-19 infections are above 27.5 million, with 897,980 deaths related to the coronavirus.

Libyan production has already been affected by a force majeure –an unforeseen set of circumstances that prevents a party from fulfilling a contract – that was in place for much of the year.

The country tentatively lifted it in July to resume oil exports.

But the ports were closed a day later after forces allied to Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar called for an equitable distribution of oil revenue across the country.

Field Marshal Haftar, who controls the east of the country and is head of the Libyan National Army, allowed port operations to resume in August.

Blockades have resulted in lost Libyan oil production worth $6.5 billion (Dh23.87bn) since the start of the year and led to an increase in the cost of rebuilding infrastructure, the NOC said.

Much of Libya’s oil production was affected by the civil war that erupted after the downfall of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.

Production, which was about 1.75 million barrels per day before the conflict, fell by 850,000 bpd in the years that followed as protests and blockades prevented crude exports from leaving the country.