Libya oil chief says production down 50 per cent, urges foreign workers to return

The assurances by Shukri Ghanem, the head of the state-run National Oil Co. and Libya's de facto oil minister, came as uncertainty swirled about the state of the OPEC member's production and who was actually in control of the brunt of the nation's oil. Libya sits atop Africa's largest proven reserves.

The country is the only member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries so far seriously affected by the protests roiling the Arab world, and unrest there has sent shudders through global oil markets.

Ghanem claimed that the government in Tripoli remained firmly in control of the country's oil installations — from fields to refineries and pipelines. He rejected an assessment put forward by EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger on Monday that Gadhafi had lost control of the country's main oil and gas fields.

"He does not control the oil," Ghanem said, referring to Oettinger. "You can believe who you want, but I am the chairman of the National Oil Company and I know what we produce," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Ghanem conceded, however, that production at some fields, including in the Hamada area, had been halted, but attributed the disruption to the departure of foreign workers.

"Of course there is a drastic cut" in production, he said. "The main reason for the oil production to come down is the panic of foreign labourers, who felt they had to leave. I think all labourers will be safe if they return."

The comments came hours after officials in Libya's east, which has thrown off Gadhafi's rule, said that the Tobruk port had reopened and one China-bound tanker was being loaded with 1 million barrels of crude. Another tanker, destined for Italy, was waiting to pick up its cargo of 600,000 barrels of Libya's light sweet crude — a refiner's favourite.

"The terminal (at Tobruk) is working at 100 per cent," Rajab Sahnoun, an official with the Arabian Gulf Oil Co., which is based in the eastern city of Benghazi, told the AP.

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.