The National Oil Corp. said in a terse statement that it
lifted the force majeure at the Sharara oil field in the country’s south and
resumed full production. It didn’t provide further details. Force majeure is a
legal maneuver that releases a company from its contractual obligations because
of extraordinary circumstances.
The company had activated the maneuver on Jan. 7 after
protesters from the desert town of Ubari, about 950 kilometers (590 miles)
south of the capital, Tripoli, shut down the field to protest fuel shortages.
Over the past two weeks the company’s chief, Farhat
Bengdara, and military officials from eastern Libya have been negotiating with
the protest leaders, Fezzan Group.
Barzingi al-Zarrouk, the protesters’ spokesman, announced
that they have suspended their protest after they reached agreement with the
company.
He said the agreement was brokered by the self-styled Libyan
National Army, which is commanded by powerful military general Khalifa Hifter.
Hifter’s forces control Libya’s east and much of the south.
The protesters have reportedly called for rehabilitating
infrastructure and repairing roads in the southwestern region of Fezzan, one of
the historic three provinces of Libya. They previously closed the field for two
days in July.
Libya’s light crude has long featured in the country’s
yearslong civil conflict, with rival militias and foreign powers jostling for
control of Africa’s largest oil reserves.
Libya has been in turmoil since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The North African nation has for most of the past decade been split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each backed by militias and foreign governments.