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Tripoli, 18 . . .[restrict]January:
The country’s Petroleum Faculty Guard (PFG) is boosting security at oil facilities in the west and south of the country following the attack at the Algerian gas plant, according to a statement released on its Facebook page today.
The PFG said that it had taken measures “to enhance and reinforce the protection of oil fields, faculties and employees in the west and south region of Libya,” due to recent events in the region.
A series of actions to improve security include: “The formation of a special operations room, including military air support and increasing guards, military personal and intensifying security patrols inside and out the sites around the clock to block any attempt from any whom wish to compromise public property.”
The statement added that security within all fields was fully established and the conditions were completely safe. “There is no record of any violations or attempts and work in all sites and faculties is normal,” PFG said.
This boost to oil field security in the country reflects Prime Minister Ali Zeidan’s statement on Wednesday that the GNC “is serious in protecting our petroleum installations.” He said that if oil workers were abducted in Libya, the government “would deal with it.”
The final outcome of the terrorist attack on workers at the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria, which is some 100 kilometres west of the Libyan border, is as not yet known tonight. The gas plant is a joint venture between England’s BP and Norway’s Statoil with Algeria’s state oil company Sonatrach.
BP returned to Libya in May last year but its operations are not yet fully underway. Robert Wine, a press officer for BP, told Libya Herald today that the company has “just a very few foreign nationals in Libya while we develop our plans for starting fuller activity.” He added that BP still has around 100 local staff from before the revolution working on the ground.
“We monitor security as a matter of course in all the countries where we have operations, and Libya won’t be any different,” Wine said. [/restrict]
