Libya's NOC warns of 'catastrophic' consequences if Sharara oilfield halted

By Ahmed Elumami and Ayman Al-Warfalli

TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) warned on Sunday of "catastrophic consequences" if the El Sharara oilfield is brought to a complete halt by a tribesmen protest.

Should the 315,000 barrel-a-day field shut down, it would take a long time to bring it back on stream and production from another field would also be affected, the state oil firm said.

"Shutting down production at the El Sharara field will have catastrophic, long-term consequences, it would take a long time to resume production because of the sabotage and theft that are likely to happen," NOC said in a statement.

The tribesmen stormed into the field premises on Saturday, saying their southern Fezzan region had suffered decades of neglect and demanding that the revenue of the oil produced from local fields be used to fund development projects.

NOC said the storage tanks at the field will be completely full in the next hours, forcing the field to shut down as it cannot pump the crude out to processing facilities.

It described the protesters as "criminals" because they had stopped the pumps from functioning.

"The company would then have to implement an emergency plan to evacuate the staff from the field," it said in a statement.

If El Sharara stops operating, production at the El Feel oilfield, also in southern Libya, would also stop because El Sharara supplies it with power and the supply to the Zawiya refinery on the coast would also be interrupted, it said.

NOC accused security guards on Saturday of having facilitated the "occupation" of the field.

The tribesmen call themselves the Fezzan Anger Movement. Their spokesman, Mohamed Maighal, said they would allow crude oil already extracted to be put into storage tanks but then force production to be stopped.

NOC has previously tried to avert such action through talks.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Adrian Croft)