Local protesters blocked crude oil loadings at the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf ports in Libya on Tuesday, five engineers and a shipping source told Reuters, putting about 450,000 barrels per day of exports at risk.
In a statement addressed to the country's state-run National Oil Corporation (NOC) dated Jan. 5, the protesters demanded the relocation of several oil company headquarters to the Oil Crescent region, calling for fair development of their coastal area to improve living conditions.
The company said on its official X account on Tuesday that its crude production had reached more than 1.4 million bpd, about 200,000 bpd short of its pre-civil war high. It was not immediately clear if the blockade had had an impact on production so far.
A loading program seen by Reuters showed that Es Sider was on track to export about 340,000 bpd of crude in January, with another 110,000 bpd slated to ship from Ras Lanuf.
Brent crude prices were up 41 cents at $77.49 a barrel by 1119 GMT, with analysts citing the Libya outage as one of the reasons for the rise.
Protests have previously disrupted oil operations in Libya, forcing the shutdown in August last year of about 700,000 bpd of production in a dispute over the position of the central bank governor.
The shutdowns lasted for more than a month, with production gradually resuming from early October.
