Libyan oil revenues fell short of 2013 predictions by almost a fifth after protests in the crisis-stricken country disrupted production.
Libyan oil sales yielded under $40billion in 2013, after previous forecasts of $50billion for the year, the country’s deputy minister for oil and gas announced.
Omar Shakman said the losses were down to disruption at the country’s main oil terminals, sparked when militia shut down operations and demanded a share of oil revenues.
Security guards closed oil terminals in July and joined the Cyrenaica autonomy campaign, with separatists having announced they would allow exports from the terminals last week.
The news comes as OPEC said it was now pumping less oil than the global need for crude in the wake of outages in Libya.
The Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries kept its demand and supply forecasts unchanged, saying it expects demand for crude oil this year to average 29.58million barrels per day.
But the group’s monthly report also said the body lowered output to 29.44million barrels in December.
That number would change if production disruption in Libya, Iraq and Iran ended, meaning Saudi Arabia would have to cut output.
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