LONDON, April 4 (UPI) -- Libyan oil production may struggle to stay at more than 1.5 million barrels per day because of the lack of political and security developments, an analyst said.
Libyan Deputy Oil Minister Omar Shakmak said from Dubai that the government aims to increase oil production from 1.5 million barrels per day to 1.7 million bpd this year, Bloomberg News reports.
His comments follow clashes last month at the Dahra oil field and incidents in western Libya that halted natural gas shipments to Italy.
Sana Abid, oil analyst at KBC Energy Economics, told Bloomberg from London that Libya might not reach its target production.
"I don't see anything positive politically and these kinds of incidents make me feel more wary of them reaching their production target," he said. "They are going to struggle to get past 1.5 million bpd this year."
A labor strike at the Gialo oil field in Libya left 120,000 barrels of crude oil per day off the market in mid-March. A rocket-propelled grenade attacks sparked an exploration on a Libyan natural gas pipeline this week. There was no claim to responsibility or injuries reported.
