Libya's eastern port Tobruk opens for oil exports

[February 28, 2011]  CAIRO (AP) -- Libya's eastern port of Tobruk reopened Monday and one tanker bound for China was being loaded, officials said, as the chief executive of Saudi Arabia's state-run oil giant announced his company had stepped in to compensate for an export shortfall stemming from the unrest in the North African nations.

The news offered a glimmer of hope that the disruption to exports from Libya may ease, at least slightly. The country, where Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is embroiled in a violent struggle to stay in power, is the only member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries so far seriously affected by the protests roiling the Arab world.

The unrest in the North African nation has sent shudders through global oil markets, with concern centering on the possibility that the unrest could spread to other OPEC members, triggering a major supply crunch that would propel prices forward and potentially undercut global economic recovery efforts.

"The terminal (at Tobruk) is working at 100 percent," said, Rajab Sahnoun, an official with the Arabian Gulf Oil Co., which is based in the eastern city of Benghazi, told The Associated Press. He said that one tanker bound for China was being loaded at the Marsa al-Harigh (Tobruk) port, with a capacity of 1 million barrels of crude, while another Italy-bound tanker was waiting and expected to load in the coming days.

Sahnoun also said that at least two of the major eastern fields, Sarir and Misla, were still producing, though at slightly reduced capacity. He was not able to say how much production was down at those fields, but noted that the 34-inch pipeline to the terminal was operating normally. The terminal can store 4 million barrels of crude, he said.

Another Agoco official, Ali Faraj, who works in the emergency operations room at the facility, said the company's production of roughly 220,000 barrels per day was largely unaffected.

"A drop of 5,000 or 6,000 barrels per day, in our experience, is not a drop, really," Faraj said.

Gamal Shallouf, spokesman for the Tobruk city council, said that along with Sarir and Misla, the Nafoura field was also producing.

There were conflicting reports about the overall decline in Libya's output. The National Oil Company said production was down about 50 percent, according to Libyans working in the industry. The figure is roughly the same as estimates put forward by analysts and international oil company officials.

But Faraj and others dismissed that kind of a drop as propaganda designed to boost support for Gadhafi by showing how the unrest had hit the country. With communications down or difficult in many parts of the country and large areas of the country inaccessible because the danger posed by pro-Gadhafi militias, it has been difficult for executives and others to get a clear picture of the current overall production levels.

Libya produces about 1.6 million barrels per day of crude oil, and about 85 percent of its exports are Europe-bound.

Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members have repeatedly said they are ready to step in and compensate for any Libyan export losses. The fighting in the country has already hammered oil markets, with the U.S. benchmark hovering above $99 per barrel on Monday while the Brent futures contract in London was above $113 per barrel.

Khalid Al Falih, the chief executive of Saudi Aramco, said that the company had "met the additional needs resulting from the halt in Libyan exports." He did not specify how much additional crude the company had supplied its customers, saying that the situation "is continuously changing."

OPEC members have dismissed the need for an emergency meeting, even as consumer countries voiced alarm at the rally in prices that has sent crude futures in New York to nearly $100 per barrel on Monday while the London-based crude benchmark was above $113 per barrel.

But Saudi Arabia, which has carved a niche for itself as the market stabilizer, appeared eager to allay concerns by ramping up exports. Iran, which holds OPEC's revolving presidency this year, appeared to take issue with the Saudi efforts, with its oil minister, Masoud Mirkazemi, calling on Riyadh to "avoid any hasty decisions" regarding its crude oil output, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Iran and other OPEC members have repeatedly said the market is well supplied and that the price rally is driven now more by sentiment than supply-demand fundamentals.

But Iran is also one of the OPEC nations that relies heavily on oil revenues for its state budget, and the run-up in price is key to the government that is already under pressure from inflation, unemployment and international sanctions over its controversial nuclear program.

Libya's ongoing political struggle has hit hard at the country's vital oil sector. As the violence flared, with Gadhafi relying on militias and mercenaries to battle against Libyans demanding an end to his rule, production has been hit hard.

The country sits atop Africa's largest proven reserves of crude. But it also relies of foreign companies for their expertise as it has tried to boost its production.

The International Energy Agency reported late Friday that Libya is probably still producing about 850,000 barrels of oil daily, down from its normal capacity of 1.6 million barrels - but acknowledged the estimate is based on "incomplete, conflicting information."

Many of those companies, which include international giants such as Exxon Mobil, BP PLC, Spain's Repsol, Italy's Eni and Austria's OMV, however, pulled their foreign workers as the violence flared.

Oil workers for Britain's OPS International oil field services company made it across the Egyptian border in a convoy of buses across the desert late Sunday night, and another bus full of oil workers reached the Libyan port of Raf Lanuf Monday and got on a ship Monday bound for Malta, said company chairman Gavin de Salis.

Meanwhile, France's Total SA said it evacuated all expatriate oil workers in the country, and their families, said spokeswoman Phenelope Semavoine. She said the company "continues to reduce some of our production" of Libya oil but declined to provide more detail.

Repsol spokesman Kristian Rix said Monday that the company is now "declining to give production figures because the situation is unclear and communications are difficult." He said the company was able to get the rest of its employees and contractors out of remote Libyan desert production areas over the weekend. In all, about 200 employees have been evacuated since the crisis began.

Local employees, in many cases, also steered clear from the fields and their offices because of the unrest.

[Associated Press; By TAREK EL-TABLAWY]

Associated Press writers Paul Schemm in Brega, Libya, Alan Clendenning in Madrid and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

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