Libya’s oil production unlikely to reach 2 million barrels per day ever again
Pro: Libya hopes to increase oil production to over 2 million barrels per day in the medium term. Here's why that is unlikely to happen. (subscriber only, access with free trial)
Al-Monitor Pro Members
Gerald Kepes
President, Competitive Energy Strategies, LLC
Feb. 8, 2023
When reference is made to Libya’s upstream oil sector, “abundance,” “rich” and “leading” are the words often used. While true enough when referring to crude oil resources, this is not the same as crude oil production capacity. Libya’s current capacity to produce crude oil is about 1.2 million barrels per day (b/d). Farhat Bengdara, the head of Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC) toward the end of 2022 stated a desire to increase output to over 2 million b/d over the medium term. Wishing will not make it so.
Achievable success for Libya is more likely to look like 1.5 to 1.6 million b/d within five years and sustaining that for five years. But this is not a foregone conclusion.
