TRIPOLI: Libya's oil production has dropped about 70,000 barrels to 523,000 barrels per day (bpd), mainly due to a power problem that is now fixed, the National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Wednesday.
NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla told Reuters that about 60,000 bpd had been lost temporarily because of power faults in the Waha and Dafa fields.
"Today we repaired the electrical problem and resumed production gradually," he said. It was not clear when the power problem started.
A blast in a control room at Al-Lahib field early on Tuesday, thought to be caused by a technical fault, led to a drop of 9,000 million to 10,000 barrels, as well as a loss of 15 million and 17 million cubic feet of gas, the NOC said.
Production at Al-Lahib was due to resume as soon as an investigation into the blast and a safety and security assessment were concluded, the NOC said in a statement.
Libya's oil production has been hovering at around 600,000 bpd in recent weeks, after more than doubling since September when eastern military forces took control of several blockaded oil ports from a rival faction and allowed the NOC to reopen them.
But output, which has been hit by fighting and by political and social disputes, remains far below the 1.6 million bpd the OPEC member was producing before Libya's 2011 uprising.
The NOC hopes to raise production to 900,000 bpd by the end of this year and to 1.1 million bpd in 2017, but the increases depend on the lifting of a blockade at pipelines serving the western fields of El Feel and Sharara.
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