Libya's National Oil Corporation has ambitious plans to restore output to pre-2011 levels after years of violence and disruption, officials said. Oil output is now less than a quarter of the 1.6 million barrels per day Libya pumped before Muammar Gaddafi fell in 2011, and the National Oil Corporation (NOC) in Tripoli hopes to ramp it up swiftly with the backing of a new unity government. Full recovery could take years because of shutdowns by disgruntled workers, political rivalry and attacks by Islamic State militants.
An NOC official in Tripoli told Reuters that at least 200,000 bpd of capacity had been damaged in attacks on oil fields in the western Sirte basin, Libya's most prolific. It may take the NOC until late 2017 or 2018 to bring those fields back to full capacity, the official said, if it can afford the repairs.