The Libyan National Oil Corporation announced today, Monday, the resumption of oil production in the "Elephant" oil field and the lifting of the force majeure situation from crude exports from it and from the "spark" field in the south of the country.

The Oil Corporation's announcement restored production in the "Sharara" and "Elephant" fields, hoping for the recovery of the Libyan economy and the opening of the remaining oil ports and fields in the center of the country.

The Central Bank of Libya announced on Monday that the losses of closing oil installations and ports during five months of this year amounted to 6 billion dollars.

The forces of retired Major General Khalifa Hifter shut down the ports, fields, and oil tanking valves in mid-January, to prevent the Al-Wefaq government from benefiting from oil revenues.

The Sharara oil field located in southern Libya is the largest production in the country, as its production capacity before closing was 300 thousand barrels per day.

Direct export

The head of the National Oil Corporation, Mustafa Sanallah, said, "The Oil Corporation will start the operations of exporting oil as soon as possible. It can also be confirmed that the oil will reach the Zawia refinery, which will resume its production of fuel for domestic use and raise the pressure on the budget allocated to import fuel from abroad."

He stressed that in the first phase of production, the Elephant Field will operate at a capacity of 12 thousand barrels per day and the Sharara field with a capacity of 30 thousand barrels, provided that the full production capacity is reached during the coming weeks.

San'a Allah expressed his hope that the return of oil production in the "Sharara" field would be the first step to restore life to the oil and gas sector in Libya.

The highest production capacity

The engineer at the "Mellitah" oil complex, Fathi Al-Zawari, said that the "Sharara" field is pumping at its highest production capacity in light of the full oil tanks, in addition to the "Al-Wafa" field located near the stairway area southwest of Tripoli was not affected by the war in the capital.

Al-Zuwari said in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net that "the return of oil fields to production with natural capacity at the appropriate time depends on the size of the damages resulting from the cessation during the past five months."

He stressed that gas production in Libya was not affected by the war in Tripoli and the closure of Haftar ports and oil fields, given the presence of the Sabratha platform at sea and its full capacity.

Important batch

In turn, member of the Supreme Council of the State, Mohamed Takala, confirmed that the resumption of production from the Sharara and Elephant fields gives an important boost to the Libyan economy, pending the resumption of production from the rest of the fields in the Crescent Petroleum.

The Chairman of the Economic Committee of the Council added, "By returning these fields now even if we do not cover oil production expenditures in the general budget, but at the same time it is important that we compensate the losses in the reserve for local income."

Takala said in his statement to Al-Jazeera Net that when Al-Wefaq government extends its control over the entire soil of the country, it will send the Libyan army, border guards units and oil installations to secure all oil installations.

Positive effect

The oil union media office official Louay Daoud confirmed that the return of the spark and elephant oil fields has a positive impact on the national economy, in conjunction with the recovery of oil prices globally.

"The spark and elephant fields are relatively high-yield fields, as crude oil is considered one of the two fields of high quality in global markets," Dawood said in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net.

He believes that the resumption of production from other fields in central Libya depends on the security situation surrounding the current events, indicating the readiness of the technical teams and experts of the National Oil Corporation to operate all the parked fields and raise their production capacity in record time.