Tripoli: Putschist Gen. Khalifa Haftar, who launched an oil blockade and closed oil wells in the war-torn country for months, is selling Libya’s oil through illegal corporations, security sources said Tuesday.
According to sources speaking to IHA news agency, Haftar signed an illegal agreement ignoring the National Oil Corporation (NOC) to monopolize the oil sector in the country for 10 years and form a parallel company.
The NOC is officially responsible for the extraction, processing, distribution and export of oil in Libya, while oil extracted from the region under the control of Haftar’s forces has to be operated by the Brega oil complex in eastern Libya. The sources also argued that Haftar’s illegal company would sell the oil through the sea to another company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Powerful tribes in eastern Libya loyal to Haftar have kept export terminals closed and choked off major pipelines since the start of 2020 in a move aimed at putting pressure on their rivals in the United Nations-supported Government of National Accord (GNA), based in the capital Tripoli. Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa and the ninth-largest known reserves in the world. – Agencies
