The issue of evacuating the foreign workers from Sharara oilfield in Libya has shed light on a lot of ambiguity as to what the reasons are.

Reuters reported an engineer at the field on Monday as saying that the field had been temporarily evacuated because of unspecified information about an armed group nearby.

16 workers from countries including Spain, France, the Philippines and Serbia had been evacuated and were expected to return on Wednesday, he said, according to Reuters.

Reuters added that local media reports mentioned the presence of an armed group near the field. There was no comment from the National Oil Corporation (NOC), which runs the field in partnership with oil companies Repsol, Total, Statoil and OMV.

Meanwhile, a high-ranking security official tasked with securing Sharara oilfield said the field is secure and there are no armed groups nearby.

He told Bawabat Al-Wasat news website that some foreign workers left because the work was suspended after the closure of Rayayna pipeline, adding that there security forces securing the field in addition to patrols around the location.

Sharara oilfield is Libya’s biggest and it was producing more than 280,000 barrels per day (bpd) before it was forced to close after an armed group from Zintan shut a pipeline at Rayayna, near the western town of Zintan, on August 19.