Chairman of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), Mustafa Sanalla, received on Monday at the NOC's HQ in Tripoli, the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, who arrived in Tripoli on an unannounced visit yesterday.
The meeting, which featured members of NOC senior staff, highlighted the impact of the illegal blockade on oil facilities, in addition to Germany’s efforts to solve the Libyan crisis.
Another matter of concern was the economic and environmental damages and the risks arising from the oil shutdown, in terms of public safety, as the oil sites are still occupied by armed groups and foreign mercenaries.
According to a statement by the NOC on Facebook, the officials also addressed other important issues, inter alia, the financial transparency in parallel with the restoring of security arrangements, the need to evacuate oil facilities from all manifestations of military presence and make them demilitarized buffer zones, and not to use the oil sector as a political bargaining chip.
For his part, the German Foreign Minister emphasized the need to bring the oil blockade crisis to an end as soon as possible. He stressed his country's support for the NOC's efforts to resume production, underscoring the NOC's role in preserving the unity of Libya.
Meanwhile, warlord Khalifa Haftar, under local and international pressure, agreed Tuesday to reopen the oil fields and ports after seven months of forced closure that caused losses worth $ 8.368 billion.
