| ABC News | - |
Libya's
prime minister faced increasing calls for his ouster on Saturday as
strikes by government employees at oil export terminals cost the North
African country more than $5 billion in losses.
Libya's Oil Exports Plunge as Problems Escalate
Libya's prime minister faced increasing calls for his ouster on Saturday
as strikes by government employees at oil export terminals cost the
North African country more than $5 billion in losses.
Bilqasim Shindeer el-Shibany, a board member of Libya's National Oil
Corp., told The Associated Press that oil exports almost entirely have
stopped. Late last month, officials said exports were around 300,000
barrels per day, down dramatically from pre-war levels in early 2011.
Adding to the government's woes, the capital, Tripoli, has been hit with
water cuts for three days and electricity outages for the past few
months that last around four hours daily.
Prime Minister Ali Zidan has struggled to reign in the combustible mix
of tribal feuds, disgruntled employees and renegade militias fueling the
crisis. The country's nascent police and army have been unable to
secure the country following the eight-month-long civil war in 2011 that
toppled dictator Moammar Gadfhafi.
The closure of onshore oil facilities have driven down production to
just 130,000 barrels per day, Libya's Deputy Oil Minister Omar
el-Shakmak told reporters earlier this week. An official in Libya's
National Oil Corp. said Saturday that figure had risen slightly by the
end of the week to 150,000 barrels per day, less than 10 percent of its
pre-war levels. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not
authorized to speak to the media.
Libya was producing 1.6 million barrels of oil per day under Gadhafi and
was exporting around 1.2 million barrels daily. Production stopped
briefly during the civil war, but picked up within months of Gadhafi's
capture and killing at the hands of rebels, who now comprise many of the
militias.
Zidan's government has been pressed to provide basic services, unify the
country's tribes and restore security. Lawlessness in Libya last year
led to an attack on the U.S. Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi
that killed the American ambassador and three others.
Dozens of people protested in the capital on Friday against Zidan. That
same day, Libya's top cleric, Mufti al-Sadiq al-Ghiryani, called on the
prime minister's government to be sacked for "incompet'ence."
The prime minister, who was not the Islamists' first choice to lead
government, is also under fire from the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood's
Justice and Construction Party, which called on parliament to
investigate Zidan's performance, a move that could lead to a
no-confidence vote against him. The party said hundreds of thousands of
security personnel, many of them members of militias aligned with the
government, are on government payroll, but that insecurity remains
rampant. The party also condemned Zidan's visit to neighboring Egypt
this week, where he met Cairo's new military-backed leaders who took
power after a coup ousted the Brotherhood's party there from power and
led to a fierce crackdown against the Islamist group.
Meanwhile, gunmen in the west of Libya, whose motives are unclear, have
disrupted oil supplies used mostly for the domestic market and closed
down three pipelines.
Additionally, protests and strikes by oil facility guards who work for
the Defense Ministry have shut down major oil export terminals in the
east. Some workers are demanding higher pay and better arms for
protection against criminal gangs illicitly selling oil for their own
profit to rogue buyers. Others have protested for a different boss in
the Defense Ministry and are federalists demanding greater rights for
the east.
The volatile atmosphere threatens to further destabilize Libya and has
already contributed to jitters among international oil traders and
refiners.
The protests by Petroleum Facilities Guard personnel have cost Libya
around $140 million a day, or what is more than $5 billion in total
losses, according to the National Oil Corp.'s website.
Libya's central bank has warned that if the situation remains as it is
through the end of the year, the country could lose its contracts with
foreign companies. Bank officials said the national budget and the
government's ability to pay civil servants would also be severely
impacted.
Naji Mokhtar, head of the energy committee in Libya's elected
parliament, said the strikes at ports are also choking imports of diesel
and fuel oil for electricity plants, leading to rolling shortages.
"Now we don't have a choice other than using force to disperse these sit-ins," he told reporters this week.
Water shortages also have hit Tripoli in recent days, with hospitals and
homes relying on storage from wells and large tanks. The shortages
began around three days ago when the Megraha tribe in Sabha cut the
power on pumps that keep water flowing from the south to the northwest,
where the capital is located.
The cuts are linked to the abduction of the daughter of the former
intelligence chief under Gadhafi, Abduallah el-Senoussi, who hails from
the Megraha tribe. El-Senoussi's daughter, Anoud, was kidnapped on
Monday after she left al-Rayoumi prison in Tripoli where she was
visiting her father. He is detained over his role in alleged crimes
committed during the civil war.
Highlighting the government's inability to control even its own paid
forces, officials said that a militia aligned with the Supreme Security
Committee, which works with police and is aligned with the Interior
Ministry, had taken Anoud.
A video released after her abduction shows her claiming to be under the group's protection.
"They are protecting me out of fear from other groups . and have treated me like a sister," she says.
The video could not be verified but conformed to reporting by the AP.
———
Associated Press writer Aya Batrawy in Cairo contributed to this report.
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