Crude tanker loadings have ceased at the terminal that handles exports from Libya’s largest oilfield.
The Sharara field cut production after the National Oil Corp (NOC) declared a force majeure on Wednesday because of an unstable political situation.
It said the “current circumstances” had prevented loading at the port of Zawiya.
Shipbroker BRS Group said oil is shipped from the terminal on aframaxes.
Clarksons Securities assessed aframax rates down 19% over the past week at $30,200 per day.
Petrol loading and unloading operations were not affected, according to the NOC.
The producer had said on Tuesday that it was gradually reducing output from Sharara due to protests in the area.
Production at the field was still reaching 200,000 barrels per day on Tuesday, two field engineers told Reuters. It has a capacity of about 300,000 bpd.
The NOC attributed the gradual reduction in output to “force majeure circumstances resulting from a sit-in of the gathering of the Fezan movement”.
Fezan (or Fezzan) is the region where the field is located.
Many disruptions
Sharara in south-western Libya is operated by a joint venture featuring NOC, Spain’s Repsol, France’s TotalEnergies, Austria’s OMV and Norway’s Equinor.
The field was shut down by protests in January.
This was one of many disruptions to Libya’s oil output in the decade since the country was divided by civil war in 2014.
Two separate administrations run the east and west following the removal of former ruler Muammar Gaddafi.
S&P Global said that production of between 28,000 bpd and 70,000 bpd had been lost from Sharara, down from recent levels of 250,000 bpd.
Through June and July, exports from the terminal were oscillating at around 150,000 bpd, with total exports at 1.2m bpd, BRS added.
