MILAN, Italy, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Italian energy company Eni said Wednesday its third quarter production levels were down in part because of lingering issues in Libya.
Chief Executive Officer Paolo Scaroni said his company had a string of exploration successes during the third quarter. This offset problems in Libya, where production was down 3.1 percent in the first nine months of the year.
"These operating successes strengthen our profitability outlook against the backdrop of a quarter that has not only been affected by difficult market conditions in the European markets of mid- and downstream [energy sectors], but also by the extraordinary reductions of production in Nigeria and Libya," he said in a statement.
Total third quarter production was down 3.8 percent to 1.65 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Labor strikes at the el-Sharara field in western Libya began last weekend. Platts, an energy reporting division of publisher McGraw Hill, reported Tuesday the strike closed production from the field, which has a peak production capacity of 350,000 barrels per day.
Libyan oil production peaked before civil war in 2011 at more than 1.5 million bpd. Platts reported current production levels of around 300,000 bpd.
