LIBYA: Prime Minister Ali Zeidan says the Government will use all means, including military force if necessary, to prevent striking security guards at the country's main ports from selling its crude oil independently

Record ID: 344333

  • Title: LIBYA: Prime Minister Ali Zeidan says the Government will use all means, including military force if necessary, to prevent striking security guards at the country's main ports from selling its crude oil independently
  • Date: 15th August 2013
  • Summary: TRIPOLI, LIBYA, (AUGUST 15, 2013) (REUTERS) LIBYAN PRIME MINISTER ALI ZIEDAN AND MINISTERS ENTERING NEWS CONFERENCE ROOM LIBYAN FLAG JOURNALIST LISTENING AT NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LIBYAN PRIME MINISTER ALI ZEIDAN, SAYING: "The government will deal with this situation with extreme seriousness and firmness. If any ship approaches the ports and is not in a contract with the NOC it will be exposed to bomb either by air or sea without warning" VARIOUS OF JOURNALISTS TAKING NOTES (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LIBYAN OIL MINISTER, ABD AL BARI AL AROSY, SAYING: "We've lost in this period from the 25th of July until now around 1.6 Billion USD due-to this strike this regarding direct affect. But the indirect affect, which is bad relation with the market, we've lost a lot of our clients in the world market. We've found that a lot of our contractors went to find other markets to operate their refineries" CAMERAMEN FILMING NEWS CONFERENCE ENDING
  • Embargoed: 30th August 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Libya
  • Country: Libya
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA84A5CWCIFBKGPGT9PZFIB0FQ3
  • Story Text: Libya will use all means necessary, including military force, to prevent striking security guards at the country's main ports from selling its crude oil independently, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said on Thursday (August 15).
    In a critical challenge to the government, strikes at Libya's two largest ports have pushed production and exports, the lifeblood of the north African country's economy, to their lowest levels since the civil war that ousted veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
    Zeidan said that the leader of the protesters, Ibrahim al-Jathran, who is the regional head of the Petroleum Facilities Guard, wanted to sell the oil independently of Libya's state National Oil Corp.

    "The government will deal with this situation with extreme seriousness and firmness. If any ship approaches the ports and is not in a contract with the NOC it will be exposed to bomb either by air or sea without warning," sai Zeidan.
    Oil Minister Abdelbari al-Arusi said all ports were shut except for Zawiya in the west.

    "We've lost in this period from the 25th of July until now around 1.6 Billion USD due-to this strike this regarding direct affect," said al-Arusi.

    "But the indirect affect, which is bad relation with the market, we've lost a lot of our clients in the world market. We've found that a lot of our contractors went to find other markets to operate their refineries," he added.
    His deputy, Omar Shakmak, said earlier on Thursday that negotiations to resume exports from Es Sider, the country's biggest crude oil terminal, had failed.
    No comment was immediately available from the protesters, who have not publicly threatened to sell oil independently.
    The protests are located mainly in the eastern portion of Libya. At the major sites, Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, the strikes began with armed security guards asking for higher pay. The two ports have a combined export capacity of just under 600,000 barrels per day, out of Libya's total of just over 1.2 million bpd.
    The outages have been a major factor in pushing up world oil prices, with benchmark Brent futures hitting a four-month high of around $111 a barrel on Thursday.
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