Libya’s NOC Declares Force Majeure on Hariga Port

Due to a budget dispute with the country's central bank, Libya's National Oil Corp (NOC) declared force majeure on Monday on exports from the port of Hariga and said it might expand the measure to other facilities.

In a statement, NOC said that daily lost income "could surpass 118 million dinars ($26 million) on a daily basis."

The NOC subsidiary that operates Hariga, Arabian Gulf Oil Co (AGOCO), announced on Sunday that it had halted production because it had not received its budget since September. Output has been reduced, according to the company's Hariga port manager and an oil engineer.

The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) has been refusing to fund the oil sector for months, according to NOC, and "this painful fact can spread to the rest of the companies."

Libyan oil production was halted for most of last year after eastern-based forces in the country's civil war blockaded oil terminals, prompting the National Oil Corporation to impose force majeure on all exports.

After a settlement was reached after the fighting ended last summer, but before the main peacekeeping operation that resulted in the formation of a new unity government, production resumed.