Tobruk terminal “still closed” despite Zeidan’s reopening announcement

By Hadi Fornaji

Tripoli 29 October, 2013:

In an embarrassing rebuff for the prime minister, less than 24 hours after Ali Zeidan visited . . .[restrict]Tobruk and declared the oil export terminal was reopening, protestors have said that it is staying shut.

He had flown into the town yesterday and held meetings with local elders and sheikhs, as well as members of Tobruk Council and local leaders of the Petroleum Facilities Guard, whose leader in the east, Ibrahim Jadhran has been leading the blockade of the export terminals.

After these talks, Zeidan said that he believed that the Marsa Hariga terminal at Tobruk, which is operated by AGOCO, would be opening within seven days.  He held up the agreement which at the time he believed had been made, as an example to all all those who thought it perfectly acceptable to act unilaterally and close pipelines and terminals.

Meanwhile it appears that with virtually all onshore production of both oil and gas, shut in either at the fields or the export terminals, output has once again slumped toward 80,000 b/,. representing purely the output from offshore fields. [/restrict]