| An oil tank is seen inside Ras Lanuf port Oil and Gas Company in Ras Lanuf, Libya July 10, 2018. Image: REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori |
Two staff, including one foreign worker, were abducted early on Saturday in an attack by an unknown group at a facility at Libya’s giant Sharara oil field, engineers from the field said.
The attack happened at a control station on the outskirts of Sharara, about 40 km (25 miles) from the main part of the field, one of the engineers said.
It was not immediately clear whether the attack would have any impact on production at the field, where output in recent months has been around 300,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) operates Sharara in partnership with Repsol, Total, OMV and Equinor, formerly known as Statoil.
The field, in Libya’s remote southwest, has suffered security problems in the past, including raids in which vehicles and mobile phones have been stolen.
The facility that was targeted on Saturday is called Station 186 and was also attacked last year.
In addition to being one of Libya’s main export grades, Sharara feeds the 120,000 bpd Zawiya oil refinery on the country’s northwest coast.