Oil Fields Attacked in Libya

According to a report on Yahoo News, the National Oil Company in Libya said that it was unable to fulfill its contractual agreements with buyers on Wednesday, March 4th, 2015 after eleven oil fields were attacked. The reason that they declared “force majeure” is that this is “a legal step protecting it from liability it is cannot fulfill contracts for reasons beyond its control” (Yahoo, 2015).

According to the report, “Islamist militants seized Al-Bahi and Al-Mabrouk fields on Tuesday and were heading for a third one, at Al-Dahra, said a spokesman for the Libyan oil industry’s security service” (Yahoo, 2015). In addition, “Violence and a slowdown at export terminals have already forced a shutdown at Al-Bahi and Al-Mabrouk, about 310 miles (500 kilometres) east of Tripoli, for the past several weeks” (Yahoo, 2015).

The situation in Libya is quite unstable. As I have discussed, Libya’s Civil War has a number of actors, and a government that does not have full control of the country. Oil fields are not under one unified control, and are not always operating at full capacity. There are various factions (whether they are the new government, which is in Eastern Libya), or a coalition of various groups and some members of the previous government in Tripoli. In addition, there are also other local groups, as well as violent Islamist groups such as Answar al-Shariah and ISIS with control of certain parts of Libya.

This is a conflict that has large implications for the future of Libya. As long as the government is not unified, and all military forces are not under the complete control of the state, there will exist various insecurities for Libya and the people of the country. In addition, with recent attacks on oil fields, this shows that the state’s income is quite volatile.