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By Callum Paton.
Tripoli, 26 November 2013:
Italian energy giant Eni had its outlook downgraded from stable to negative by the American credit . . .[restrict]rating agency Fitch yesterday as a result of the situation in Libya.
Citing a loss in production for Eni in Libya, Fisk said it predicted a slump in the company’s performance in 2014.
At the end of October, the Italian energy conglomerate saw its oil and gas production fall 3.8 percent in the third quarter to 1.653 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Libya’s oil exports dropped to less than 10 percent of capacity earlier this month as protests yet again halted production in the country. Federalists in the east and south of the country as well as Amazigh activists in the Jebel Nafusa are now routinely blockading production facilities to back up constitutional demands.
Amazigh protesters recently ended their blockade on Eni’s Mellitah complex, 100 kilometres west of Tripoli, which processes gas to the Greenstream pipeline for export to Italy but there were no gas exports via the pipeline between 12 and19 November. They have slowly increased since then up to about half the pipeline’s 22-million cubic-metres-a-day capacity but there have been indications Amazigh blockades might resume.
Following the failure of the vote in Congress on Sunday to make the Amazigh language, Tamzight, an official state language, it is reported that the Amazigh Supreme Council is again considering a fresh blockade at the Mellitah complex.
While Eni’s outlook has been downgraded it has retained its A+ credit rating. This may be in jeopardy but the energy company stated its commitment to Libya last year when on a visit to Tripoli the company’s in Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni pledged $8 billion of new investments over the coming decade. [/restrict]
