Officially, the main oil production sites in Libya have been closed for almost a month following the political crisis caused by the decision of the Presidential Council to replace the governor of the Central Bank al-Siddiq al-Kabir. In reality, these oil fields are only partially closed. The clan of Marshal Khalifa Haftar represented by his son Saddam sells this oil production abroad via a private company which belongs to them.
The affair worries Tripoli at the highest level. So much so, reports the Libyan national press, that Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah reported it to American officials. He complained about Saddam Haftar to Celeste Wallander, the US deputy secretary of defense, saying that Haftar’s son was exporting the Libyan people’s oil and selling it for his own account.
It is through the private company Arkeno Oil, founded in 2023 in Benghazi and owned by Saddam Khalifa Haftar, that foreign sales take place. The money is deposited into accounts in the United Arab Emirates or elsewhere before being transferred to Benghazi, without going through the Libyan state or the central bank. The Libyan National Oil Company (Noc), led by Farhat Bengdara, turns a blind eye. And for good reason, Noc signed a partnership in July 2023 with the private company Arkeno, which allows it to export and sell oil from the two fields of al-Sarir and Mesla. In view of this agreement, the oil sold would therefore come, in principle, from these two fields.
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