On Tuesday afternoon Colonel Muammer Gaddafi said he would hold on to power and “die a martyr in the end” rather than leave the country, in a speech given as opposition groups took control of eastern regions near the city of Benghazi.
His defiance suggests an increasingly violent conflict and continuing swings in the oil price. As Libya’s anguish reverberates around the world, one consequence is the threat to the country’s output of 1.8m barrels of oil per day. Which countries are most exposed?
Stratfor, a US-based risk analysis firm, notes that Libya’s oilfields lie in two distinct power bases – one in the west, one in the east (see map). The report says:
This effectively gives the country two political factions, two energy-producing basins, two oil output infrastructures. Economically at least, the seeds of protracted conflict — regardless of what happens with Gadhafi or any political changes after he departs — have already been sown. If Libya veers towards civil war, each side will have its own source of income to feed on, as well as a similar income source on the other side to target.
Stratfor writes that over the last 24 hours, output has fallen by 100,000 bpd.
Italy is the most vulnerable to a protracted conflict, with its ENI producing 250,000 bpd, 15 per cent of the Italian company’s global output. Some 24 per cent of Italian oil consumption comes from Libya. France is second – it got 117,797 bpd of oil from Libya in 2010.Here is Stratfor’s chart:
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