Control of oil industry is essential for new government, which not only needs to unite divided country but also shore up battered economy. | |||||
Middle East Online | |||||
TRIPOLI
- Libya's National Oil Corporation has thrown its support behind a
UN-backed unity government, a key pledge to a cabinet rejected by rival
forces who seek to control the country's oil wealth.
Founded
in 1970, the NOC is based in the capital Tripoli where Libya's Central
Bank -- the depositor of the country's oil wealth -- also has its
headquarters.
Both institutions have remained neutral
and continued to operate independently despite the chaos that engulfed
Libya since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moamer
Gathafi.
Libya has had two governments since the Libya
Dawn militia alliance overran Tripoli in mid-August 2014 and set up its
own administration which is not recognised by the international
community.
The Tripoli government is refusing to cede
power to the unity cabinet of prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj,
who arrived Wednesday in the capital.
"We have been
working with Prime Minister Sarraj and the Presidency Council to put
this period of divisions and rivalry behind us," NOC chairman Mustafa
Sanalla said in a statement.
"We have been looking to
the future, and now we have a clear international legal framework in
place," he added in the statement published Saturday on the NOC website.
Oil is Libya's main natural resource, with reserves estimated at 48 billion barrels, the largest in Africa.
The
North African nation had an output capacity of about 1.6 million
barrels per day before the uprising, but production has slumped amid
violence as rival forces battled for control of oil terminals.
Control
of the oil industry is essential for the new government, which not only
needs to unite the divided country but also shore up its battered
economy.
On Friday, guards in charge of securing
installations in Libya's so-called eastern "oil crescent" said oil
terminals under their jurisdiction were now placed under the authority
of Sarraj's government.
Sanalla welcomed that
development and hailed a UN Security Council resolution passed Thursday
which says oil exports from Libya must be placed under the authority of
Sarraj's Government of National Accord.
Resolution 2278
stated that it was the GNA's "primary responsibility" to take
"appropriate action to prevent the illicit export of crude oil from
Libya".
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Sunday 3 April 2016
National Oil Corporation backs Libya unity government of Sarraj
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