February
22, 2011 2:22:09 PM
*
Repsol shuts Libyan oil
output, follows Wintershall
* Operations at Libyan oil ports
disrupted - sources
(Releads with Repsol, adds details)
By Daniel Fineren and Alberto Sisto
LONDON/ROME, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Spain's Repsol
shut down its oil
output in Libya
due to unrest and the country's marine oil terminals were blocked on Tuesday, adding to
the disruption to oil
supplies from Africa's
third-largest producer.
Repsol is the second oil firm after BASF unit
Wintershall to say it has stopped production in Libya. The move means that up to 135,000 barrels
of oil per day
(bpd), more than 8 percent of supply from Libya, has been shut down.
Oil prices have hit a 2-1/2 year high above $108
a barrel this week because of the disruption. Libya pumps about 1.6 million barrels of oil per day (bpd)
of high quality oil,
equal to about 1.9 percent of daily global output.
"We have suspended all
operations in Libya
today because of the violence and uncertainty," said a spokesman for Madrid-based
Repsol, which gets about 3.8 percent of its production from the crisis-hit
north African country.
OPEC member Libya is also a natural gas exporter
and Italy, heavily reliant on energy imports,
said it was ready to tap emergency gas stocks if Libyan supplies are
interrupted.
Operations at Libyan oil ports were
disrupted by a lack of communications, trade sources said, and flows from
marine oil
terminals in Libya
were halted on Tuesday, an Italian government source said.
"The situation is worrying.
This morning the oil
terminals were blocked in Libya,"
the government source said.
Meanwhile, shipping sources said
operations at Benghazi,
Tripoli and
Misurata Mediterranean ports, which handle general cargo and container
shipping, had closed down.
'LINES DOWN'
It was not possible to get through
by phone to Libyan oil
ports or shipping agents on Tuesday.
"Everything is out," said
a source with a major oil
company. "We can't get through to anyone. Our operations people say
contact is impossible with the shipping agents, port officials, anyone. The
lines are all down."
Some ports were continuing to
operate. An oil
products trader said his cargo of gasoline was due to load as expected at Ras
Lanuf.
The Libyan unrest has prompted
Wintershall to wind down Libyan oil production of as much as 100,000 bpd and a
number of firms including BP and Royal Dutch Shell to pull out international
staff.
Repsol produced nearly 35,000 bpd in
Libya in 2009.
Any halt in Libyan oil supply would
leave a difficult hole to fill on world markets, analysts say, because while
other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are able
to pump more oil,
the extra supply would probably be of lower quality to Libyan crude.
Libya is Italy's biggest oil supplier and covers about 10 percent of its natural gas needs.
Gas moves to Italy
from Libya
through the underwater pipeline Greenstream, which is controlled by ENI.
"Supplies have not been
interrupted, but the situation is very complicated," Italy's junior minister in
charge of energy,
Industry Undersecretary
Stefano Saglia, told a conference on Tuesday.
Saglia said the security committee
for gas supplies
had already been alerted in case flows were interrupted, adding that ordinary
and strategic stocks would then be used.
"So there should not be a
problem," he added.
Natural gas flows from Libya into Italy through the
510 km Greenstream have been slowing since late Monday, and the situation is
worsening, Italian energy
publication Staffetta Quotidiana said, quoting sources close to the situation.
Gas imports through Sicily's terminal of Gela, part of the
Greenstream pipeline complex, stood at 25.8 million cubic metres on Feb. 20,
according to the latest data from Italy's gas network, Snam Rete Gas. (Reporting by Alberto Sisto in Rome, and Daniel Fineren, Alex Lawler, Christopher Johson, Jonathan Saul and Emma Farge in London; writing by Alex Lawler;
Editing by Anthony Barker)
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