On Saturday, February 11, 2017, Genscape tracked the tanker Valfoglia loading at Libya’s Bouri oil field from the Gaza Marine Terminal, a new Floating Storage and Offloading unit (FSO). The ship, chartered by Saras, was carrying about 789,000 bbls of crude and delivered it to Saras’ Sarroch refinery on the Italian Island of Sardinia on February 14. Genscape monitors crude and refined oil cargoes around the world in order to help our clients better understand oil balances and flow patterns in near real-time.
Mustafa Sanalla, chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), announced plans to increase the nation’s oil production to 900,000 bpd by the end of the year.
The Gaza was built in South Korea and arrived in Libya during May 2016. The FSO began full operation at the end of January this year and has an estimated storage crude oil capacity of 1.5 million bbls, making it one of the largest offshore vessels in the region.
The Valfoglia was the second vessel tracked by Genscape to load at the Bouri oil field in 2017. The Aspasia Lemos loaded on January 22 and was discharged four days later on January 26 at Cartagena, Spain.
Civil war has hampered most of the oil activity in Libya since 2011. When the troubles started, statistics published by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) showed that production dropped from 1.56 million bpd in 2010 to 489,500 bpd in 2011. A year later in 2012, production briefly peaked at 1.45 million bpd before entering a downward spiral that persisted until 2016 when Libyan oil output reached a low point of 391,000 bpd.
Additionally, the NOC website stated that Sanalla and other Libyan oil officials have held talks with several major oil corporations, including BP, Repsol, and OMV, about resuming activity and investment in the North African country. The resurgence in Libyan oil output could be another hurdle to the OPEC attempts to reduce the global oil oversupply. Due to the internal conflicts in the country, Libya was exempt from the agreement dictating oil production cuts planned by OPEC for the first six months of 2017. OPEC plans to meet again on May 25, 2017, to review how successful curbing oil output has been.
Genscape-monitored flows of Libyan crude shipments for the first six weeks of 2017 have shown that the country currently exports an average of 640,000 bpd. Total exports since January 1 were 28.1 million bbls, with 23.8 million bbls, or 83 percent, heading to European destinations, and five million bbls, or 17 percent, heading to Asian destinations. Italy, France, and the UK were the top destinations so far in 2017. In particular, Trieste, Italy has unloaded the most Libyan crude, receiving cargoes totaling six million bbls since the start of the year.
Genscape’s Middle East Waterborne Crude Report provides insight and analysis to assist with forecasting prices shifts by anticipating crude flows from the Middle East. Our breadth of proprietary data and trusted market intelligence shares a clear picture of the movement of crude across global markets. To learn more, or to request a trial of Genscape’s Middle East Waterborne Crude Report, please click here.