Libya's NOC warns of more Islamic State attacks on oil facilities

TRIPOLI More attacks on Libya's oil facilities are likely unless a United Nations-backed unity government is approved, and militants hit one oilfield just last week, the head of the National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Monday.


Mustafa Sanalla told Reuters that suspected Islamic State militants had staged their latest attack against Libya's oil infrastructure on late Thursday or Friday, setting fire to one production tank and damaging another at the Fida oil field.


Fida lies south-west of the oil terminals of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, where militants launched repeated assaults and inflicted major damage last month.


Total current production stands at 360,000-370,000 barrels per day, he said, less than a quarter of the 1.6 million bpd that Libya was producing before the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.


(Writing by Aidan Lewis, editing by Louise Heavens)



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