By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 22 February 2016:
The Fida oil field south east of Sirte has been attacked and two tanks set on . . .[restrict]fire, according to the National Oil Corporation. The attack happened on Thursday evening it said in a statement yesterday.
Although the tanks had a capacity of 20,0000 barrels of oil each, NOC noted they contained only 500 barrels at the time.
Blaming the so-called Islamic State (IS), it insisted the authorities had to protect the country’s oil installations. The continuing destruction of the infrastructure by IS would seriously affect Libyan production capacity, it pointed out.
IS set fire to tanks at Sidra and Ras Lanuf last month.
The head of the NOC in Tripoli Mustafa Sanalla late last year expressed fears that IS aimed to destroy Libya’s oil industry so as to cripple the state’s economic independence. Commenting on the latest attack, he said that there would be other attacks, with the entire industry at risk, unless a national unity government was put in place.
National production, he noted, was down to between 360,000 and 370,000 barrels a day.
The Fida oilfield belongs to Zueitina Oil. Ironically the company issued a statement exactly a week ago denying that any of its fields or pipelines had been attacked by anyone.
The field was closed down last March along with the Zueitina and Al-Ghani fields, all three in the Zillah area, when the Misrata-based Central Libya Shield Brigade pulled its forces out following an attack on Ghani by IS. The Central Region Petroleum Facilities Guards run by Ibrahim Jadhran were supposed to take over but failed to do so. [/restrict]
