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Crude oil cargoes worth some $400m have been exported from Libya by an obscure private company, in the latest sign of a breakdown of authority in the country. Blockades and force majeure stoppages at other oil facilities, along with the exile of a controversial central bank governor, threaten to plunge the country into an existential crisis. It comes as the compromises which have helped to contain civil conflicts since the fall of the Qadhafi regime look ever harder to sustain, writes John Hamilton

A tanker loaded with 1m barrels of Libyan crude destined for China left Tobruk port in eastern Libya on 11 July. If it can take its cargo to market, a definitive boundary will have been crossed in the dismantling of National Oil Corporation (NOC)’s control over oil export and marketing – a trade already mired in allegations about the illicit exchange of oil for Chinese military drones

Authority in Libya’s oil and gas sector is fraying, with a flood of internal administrative correspondence leaking from the Government of National Unity and especially from NOC, whose failure to account for its multi-billion dollar budgets is now threatening operations, while two rival ministers compete for control and services giant Schlumberger has threatened to suspend operations until its debts are paid, writes John Hamilton.

Public and institutional opposition have all but killed off a plan to award an unprecedented 40% production share in NOC’s largest undeveloped oil and gas field to international partners. African Energy has been given access to a large dossier of leaked documents which helps to explain what brought the deal to this point, writes John Hamilton.

The direct award of a large oil field redevelopment contract to a small local group with no known track record has prompted allegations of corruption and raised potentially awkward questions for international companies involved in the Dahra field. It has also had serious political repercussions, as minister Mohammed Aoun was dismissed in March after going public with his concerns about the deal. African Energy has scrutinised government reports and correspondence between officials and Halliburton to get a sense of what has gone wrong.

Libya’s oil sector governance is under fire as never before, with Presidential Council head Mohammed Al-Menfi asking National Oil Corporation to explain its multi-billion-dollar spending over the past two years. With oil production flatlining and gas production at risk of severe decline, Libya needs new field developments, but two of its biggest projects have become mired in allegations of corruption. With potential ramifications for all those operating across a range of sectors in Libya, African Energy has been investigating these issues and more for a series of articles based on extensive source enquiries and documentary evidence.

Abu Dhabi’s involvement in conflicts in Sudan and Libya is back in focus, after the UAE opened a second field hospital in eastern Chad, following evidence that its existing hospital was used as a cover for supplying weapons to Sudanese civil war leader Hemedti’s RSF militia. It fits into a wider pattern of Emirati involvement in African conflicts, as well as business.

Algeria is squeezing whatever gas it can out of the system for export and Morocco is looking at different options for its smaller reserves, but Libya and Egypt face bigger challenges still, with the bare minimum export LNG leaving Egyptian terminals this year.

London-listed independent Harbour Energy has announced a $11.2bn cash, debt and share deal to acquire Wintershall Dea’s assets in Algeria, Egypt, Libya and five other countries. The reverse takeover is complicated by the involvement of Russian-linked investors

Italian major Eni has blazed a trail back into Libya that numerous international oil companies are now following. Even if the risks on re-entry remain severe at many levels, the lure of unprecedented, if controversial, opportunities may be impossible to resist.

The final COP28 communiqué included – for the first time – a commitment to eventually phase out fossil fuels, going beyond previous declarations that focused on coal. However, there are few signs that Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) members and their Opec+ allies, led by Russia, have any intention of allowing their core source of revenues to disappear anytime soon. So what can we learn from recent statements by oil producers – including Opec+’s quota commitments at a meeting on 30 November – and from leaks and comments made during COP28?

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) was not the only national oil giant to lever its agenda into the climate discussions at COP28 in Dubai. Among the other interlopers was National Oil Corporation (NOC), whose chairman Farhat Bengdara told journalists that Libya will increase oil production from 1.2m b/d now to 2m b/d in the next three to five years.

Disasters in Morocco and then Libya in the first half of September – the first a natural disaster, the second largely the product of human mismanagement – have put renewed pressure on the authorities in both countries.

NOC Libya’s domestic drilling subsidiary National Oil Well Drilling and Maintenance Company has outsourced an entire drilling operation to an international provider for the first time.

Gulf governments have proved among President Vladimir Putin’s most enthusiastic friends, undermining western efforts to isolate Moscow in a relationship that goes beyond energy and business links. With the mercenary Wagner Group active across the Sahel, several dozen cargo flights between Abu Dhabi and a remote air strip in eastern Chad have provoked renewed speculation about the UAE’s ties with Moscow and its proxies, Gulf States Newsletter staff* report.