August 06, 2013 [Bloomberg] - Libya’s biggest oil export terminal, Es Sider, can store crude for 20 more days before filling up with production from some fields feeding storage tanks at the port already pumping at less than a 10th of previous levels.
The port remains shut, having closed July 28 amid protests by staff, Ibrahim Al Awami, director of the inspection and measurement department of the oil ministry, told reporters at Es Sider today.
Production from Waha Oil Co., one of the companies supplying crude to Es Sider, has dropped to 30,000 barrels a day, from 360,000 barrels a day previously, and some wells will need to be shut if the sit-in protest continues beyond 20 days, Al Awami said.
Interruptions at ports and other installations across Libya lowered nationwide oil production to 800,000 barrels day last month, the least since December 2011, according to a Bloomberg survey of output from OPEC members.
The monthly average is half of the post-revolution peak of 1.6 million barrels a day reached exactly a year earlier, the data show.
Es Sider’s crude oil storage tank capacity has been reduced to 4.5 million barrels, with some of that still unused.
