Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) has prevented an attempt from the parallel Beida government aimed at loading oil in a tanker at Tobruk’s Hariga terminal, claiming the export cargo was illicit.
The company chairman Mustafa Sanalla said that its subsidiary Agoco was instructed on April 21st by a Beyda official to load a ship at Marsa el-Hariga.
As disclosed by NOC, a document sent by Almabruk Sultan, appointed international marketing manager of NOC by the parallel administration, instructed Agoco to load 650,000 barrels of oil on April 21-23at Marsa el-Hariga for DSA Consultancy FZC, a company registered in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
The vessel in question, Distya Ameya, is Indian-flagged and arrived at Marsa al-Hariga on Thursday evening but was not cleared to load and remains at anchor.
Loading of the ship had started on Monday morning and would be finished later in the day, Reuters reported.
“I notified Prime Minister Serraj and the Presidency Council, who understood immediately the seriousness of the issue and took the necessary steps to stop the vessel from loading,” Sanalla added.
NOC said that through the Libyan mission to the United Nations, the Presidency Council notified the UN Security Council’s Libya sanctions committee that the attempted export breached UNSC resolution 2278.
“We have been in communication with the master of the ship,” said Sanalla. “ We have informed him he is breaching UN resolutions and we have asked him to leave Libyan waters immediately. He has turned off his vessel’s tracking system.”
NOC stressed that the fixing of the Distya Ameya is “ the culmination of a long campaign by DSA Consultancy to illicitly load Libyan oil, and follows several frustrated attempts by the UAE company to charter vessels under contract with the parallel administration.”