- Violence in Libya increasingly is hitting oil companies and their assets, hurting long-term investments by Western companies and driving down production.
- In the past three months, Libya's oil output has fallen from nearly 900K bbl/day to 325K bbl/day as oil fields are taken over by armed groups or shut down for security reasons.
- Affected companies include Total (NYSE:TOT), which closed the Mabruk oil field that once produced 30K-40K bbl/day; the country’s main oil port Sidra was closed because of fighting, hurting the prospects of the three U.S. companies - ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO) and Hess (NYSE:HES) - with a stake in connected fields.
- But the global crude oil market has barely reacted to the renewed fighting, because of OPEC’s decision in November not to cut production virtually guaranteed an oversupply whether Libya produces or not, analysts say.