The historic defeat of the Islamic State in Sirte is having many cascading effects. One is Misratan internal tensions, another is increased assertiveness of Haftar, and another is more oil is being brought online. The Petroleum Facilities Guard announced today it has opened the Ryayna valve, essentially lifting the western region blockade on Al-Wafa, Al-Sharara and Al-Fil oilfields. This means gobs and gobs of oil is likely to flow to Zawiyya shortly. Bloomberg has connected this story with the Sidra finally being ready to process crude. Haftar is clearly a winner as he and his allies the Zintanis now seem to control all of Libya's key oil arteries.
Libya is preparing this week to reopen two of its biggest oil fields and ship the first cargo from its largest export terminal in two years, as the war-torn OPEC state pursues plans to almost double crude output in 2017. Repsol SA-operated Sharara, Libya’s largest oil field, and the El Feel, or Elephant, deposit run by Eni SpA will soon start pumping crude to the Zawiya refinery and the Mellitah energy complex after pipelines reopened Wednesday, Mansur Abdullah, manager of the refinery’s oil movement, said by phone. The two western fields have been closed for more than a year and a half and have a combined output capacity of more than 450,000 barrels a day....The oil fields of Sharara and El Feel are poised to reopen on Thursday after the NOC reached an agreement with protesters who had been blocking pipelines that connect them with Zawiya refinery and Mellitah complex, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified because the issue isn’t public. Zawiya has received instructions to prepare for the imminent reopening of the fields, the refinery’s Abdullah said.To read the full article click here.