By: OrePulse

Unidentified individuals entered a crude receiving station run by the Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO), beside the Zawiya refinery, and shut a valve on the Hamada-Zawiya export pipeline, Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said, warning that the shutdown threatens the country's crude output and export earnings.

In a statement reported Thursday, NOC said several individuals closed the valve without prior notice to, or coordination with, the corporation's technical staff. The valve sits on an eighteen-inch line that carries crude from the Hamada and Tahara fields to the Zawiya refinery and export terminal, on Libya's coast west of Tripoli.

NOC said that if the valve stays closed, flows from both fields will be interrupted, cutting national crude production and the export earnings that flow generates. Oil exports are the main source of revenue for the Libyan state. The corporation called on the relevant authorities to reopen the valve and secure the receiving station against further unauthorized entry. NOC did not say who the individuals were, how many there were, or why they closed the valve.

The incident is the second such disruption in about a month to hit a pipeline feeding the Zawiya area. In September, a valve on the separate Sharara-Zawiya line, which carries crude from the Sharara field operated by Akakus Oil Operations, was shut for roughly five days. NOC said at the time that the closure halted about one hundred thirty thousand barrels a day of flow, a cumulative loss of nearly one million barrels worth close to one hundred million dollars. NOC announced on September 26, 2026, that the valve, numbered seven, had been reopened and that pumping toward the Zawiya refinery and export ports would resume gradually.

Separately, Oil Facilities Guard personnel closed the gates of the Zawiya Oil Refining Company and the Brega Oil Marketing Company for a day after the September reopening, blocking staff shift changes and preventing students from entering the Oil Training Institute in Zawiya.

In both the September and October cases, NOC said valve closures carried out without coordination with its technical staff put crude flows, production and revenue at risk, and it called each time for the responsible authorities to reopen the affected valve and secure the site. The corporation has not said whether the two incidents are connected.

The Zawiya refinery, on Libya's northwestern coast, receives crude for domestic refining and export from fields including Hamada, Tahara and Sharara, and the Brega Oil Marketing Company handles marketing of Libyan crude exports. NOC has not given a timeline for when the Hamada-Zawiya valve might be reopened.