Libya has restarted production at the Mabruk oilfield, which had been shut down for a decade, the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) announced on Wednesday. The restart took place on Sunday, with initial production set at 5,000 barrels per day (bpd). Plans are in place to increase this to 25,000 bpd by July.
Masoud Sulaiman, Chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation, revealed that the country aims to boost its oil output from the current 1.4 million barrels per day (mb/d) to 2 mb/d by 2028. However, reaching this target will require significant investment. Abdulsadek, another official, estimates that Libya will need between $3 billion and $4 billion to achieve an intermediate goal of 1.6 mb/d. A new licensing round is expected to be approved by the cabinet by the end of January. Oil remains crucial to Libya’s economy, contributing over 95% of its economic output.
“There is momentum in reconstruction, and this can only be achieved by increasing production,” Abdulsadek said.
Libya is not the only member of OPEC planning to boost oil production. Kuwait has also set ambitious goals. During the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference last year, Sheikh Nawaf al-Sabah, CEO of Kuwait Petroleum Corp., shared that Kuwait plans to nearly double its oil output over the next decade. The country intends to raise production from around 2.4 million barrels per day to over 4 mb/d by 2035, in partnership with international oil companies.
Sabah noted that Kuwait has low lifting costs of just $10 per barrel onshore but has slowed drilling activities due to OPEC+ production quotas. The country expects to increase its production capacity through its domestic fields and the Neutral Zone shared with Saudi Arabia.
Kuwait, with its vast oil reserves and wealth, is the fifth richest country globally by gross national income per capita. It is the fifth-largest producer in OPEC and holds 101 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, ranking seventh in the world. Kuwait’s reserves are significantly larger than those of the U.S., which has around 70 billion barrels.
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