Libya’s oil industry, the lifeblood of its economy, has once more fallen hostage to a political schism, as the re-emergence of parallel administrations has forced many hydrocarbon facilities to close.
The state-run National Oil Co (NOC) this week declared a halt to operations at two major oil export terminals and several oilfields, halving output to about 600,000 barrels per day in a country that sits on Africa’s biggest oil reserves.
The latest in a succession of political fissures since the 2011 fall of late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi cracked open in February, when the parliament, based in Libya’s east, selected a new