Political upheaval in Libya threatens oil production | Financial Times

Political upheaval in Libya threatens oil production | Financial Times:

Libya’s national oil company has suspended crude loadings at two major oil terminals, which together with a separate port blockade is estimated to trigger a drop in production of 850,000 barrels a day just as global outages have tightened the market and fuelled prices.

The dramatic fall in the country’s output, equivalent to almost 80 per cent of its production, comes as Brent has again been rising towards $80 a barrel. This spurred US president Donald Trump to call on Saudi Arabia to release 2m b/d of extra oil on to the market to offset a drop in Venezuela’s output and an expected fall in Iranian barrels.

Libya has two rival governments — one in the east controlled by military strongman Khalifa Haftar and another UN-backed authority in the west — but it is local militias that have taken effective power in the Opec country.