Repairs have been finished on a Libyan oil pipeline damaged in a suspected attack five days ago and production is restarting gradually, an engineer from the operating company said on Sunday.
The blast and resulting fire on Tuesday about 130 kilometres south of the Es Sider terminal caused a drop in output estimated by the National Oil Corporation (NOC) at 70,000-100,000 barrels per day (bpd).
A second engineer said that some checks and testing would be necessary as production resumed. Both engineers asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Oil workers on Saturday had posted pictures on social media of new sections of pipeline being laid at the site of Tuesday’s incident.
NOC subsidiary Waha Oil Co, which operates the pipeline, has described the cause of the explosion as a “terrorist attack”, without giving details. The NOC says it is investigating what happened.
