Due to lack of money: Libyan company stops oil production

The Arabian Gulf Oil Company, a subsidiary of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC), has stopped oil production due to lack of money, reports Arab News, citing the company's Facebook page. AGOCO warned late Thursday that it would cease oil production if it did not get its share of budget allocations for the past and current year. This is not the first time that AGOCO has stopped oil production. In April, the company decided to stop production because of a delay in budgeting to allocate money to the oil company to repair and maintain infrastructure and maintain oil production. AGOCO is the operator of the Sarir, Mesla, al-Bayda, Nafoora and Hamada oil fields, which together can produce 300,000 barrels per day. After AGOCO stopped production, the NOC declared force majeure for the port of Hariga because it lacked the funds to repair the infrastructure. The company blamed the Libyan central bank for the lack of funds. A week later, the NOC announced that it had lifted the force majeure for loading the Hariga oil terminal after reaching an agreement with the new unity government on the allocation of funds. The North African oil producer, which is exempt from the OPEC + cuts, is currently pumping around 1.2 million barrels a day. According to secondary sources in OPEC's latest monthly oil market report, Libyan crude oil production averaged 1.165 million bpd in July, up from 1.163 million bpd in June. Libya will struggle to keep its oil production at current levels if the country fails to resolve a long-running dispute over its budget, Libya's oil minister Mohamed Oun told Bloomberg earlier this month. The success of Libyan plans to increase oil production continues to be jeopardized by disagreements over the Libyan budget - the first state budget in nearly a decade.