Libya's giant El Sharara oilfield has been shut down because a landlord closed a valve in protest against pollution near a pipeline crossing his land, he told Reuters. The closure, which was confirmed by an oilfield engineer and a separate Libyan oil source, is a major blow to the North African country a little more than a week after the nearby El Feel oilfield was closed by a protest.
"I closed the pipeline that crosses my land. The land is six hectares and it has become wasteland," said Hassan Mohamed al-Hadi, the landowner in the western Zintan area. "We closed the pipeline last year for the same reason. A number of mediators had intervened to persuade me to reopen it within 20 days for cleaning the land, but unfortunately the same thing has returned."
Flows from El Sharara in the south of the country were not getting through to the Mediterranean port of Zawiya, an oilfield engineer said, confirming the closure. The El Sharara field has closed several times because of protests by security guards over pay, as well as protests by other groups, part of turmoil gripping Libya since the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The field has capacity of 340,000 barrels per day (bpd) but an oil source had put output at 308,000 bpd last week. National Oil Corporation (NOC) operates Sharara in partnership with Repsol, Total, OMV and Statoil. Repeated and long shutdowns cause pressure in the oilfield's wells to drop, reducing production capacity.
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