The chairman of the Libyan National Oil Company (NOC), Nuri Berruein, stated that Libya is producing 600,000 bpd of crude oil. Out of this, he said that 140,000 b/d are going to refineries and the remainder is exported.
Berruein said the giant Elephant field, which has recently started, was producing 40,000 bpd and he expected output to rise to 130,000 bpd capacity "within a week or two."
Building up production
He said that he expected production to rise to around 800,000 bpd by the end of the year and pre-war output before the end of 2012.
However, the Waha fields were not expected to start up for at least a month or a month and a half because of issues with the Sidra oil export terminal.
"We are building up production and we expect some others may come," Berruein said. "We expect Sharara and Elephant to pick up, Wintershall, AGOCO fields and the Akakus fields," he said, referring to the fields that have resumed output.
"Before the end of next year, we go back to our pre-war level," he added. He did not give a figure but he later told al-Jazeera television that Libya hoped to reach its pre-crisis level of 1.7 million bpd before the end of next year.
