Posted on 03/17/2015 6:24:21 PM PDT by thackney
Libya's internationally recognized government said on Tuesday that any sales of the country's oil should be arranged through a state firm based in Benghazi under its leadership to prevent fraud.
If implemented, the decision would escalate a battle for control that is raging, four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi, between the official government based in the east and a rival administration in Tripoli.
Oil markets have been wondering who is owning Africa's largest oil reserves. But so far customers have continued paying for exports worth hundreds of millions of dollars each month through state National Oil Corp (NOC) based in Tripoli, which is under effective control of the rival government.
"The government confirms that any contracting or sale outside the legal framework represented by National Oil Corp headed by Mabrouk Bou Seif and based in Benghazi is considered a violation," the official government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni said in a statement.
It did not say whether it would set up a new payment system through an eastern central bank as unveiled three months ago.
An official in Thinni's office said the statement came in response to a fraud attempt by a person in Tripoli who had offered Libyan crude to a firm in the United Arab Emirates.
(Excerpt) Read more at rigzone.com ...
I thought the US government was backing General Haftar in this fight...have they switched sides again?
I don’t think many Libyians really care who Obama want to support.
Perhaps this states it clearer:
Libya’s internationally-recognized government asked companies buying oil from ports under its control to deal with its administration, a move seen as an effort to weaken a rival, Islamist-backed cabinet.
Al Mabrook Bu Seif, the chairman of National Oil Corp. appointed by the elected government, said his management team is drafting a loading program that is separate from the one implemented so far, which was designed by another management team of the state-run company based in the capital, Tripoli.
“We will ask in a week or two the NOC clients to apply for the new loading program that covers the ports under control of the legal government,” he said in a telephone interview late Tuesday from the eastern export terminal of Ras Lanuf.
What a damned joke. That government rules about 1/2 square mile. They will soon rule nothing after being annihilated by the missiles hillary left behind.
A bit more than that.
The internationally-recognized government of Abdullah al-Thinni controls five of Libya’s nine oil export terminals, while the Islamist-backed government of Omar al-Hassi controls two. The remaining two are offshore platforms.
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