Electricity blackouts blight Libya’s brief economic upturn. Tripoli was without electricity on 14 January with gas supplies cut to a major power plant at Zawiya to the west. Oil output fell from the recent high of 700,000 b/d well short of the ambitious 950,000 b/d early-April goal (MEES, 6 January).
State power firm Gecol warned on 12 January that if a blockade of the gas pipeline supplying the Zawiya facility continues this risks “total blackout” (MEES, 13 January). Southern Libya was already suffering from blackouts with many without power for six days. The latest wave of outages hit urban centers as far east as Ajdabiya, more than 500km east of Tripoli. Water supply to Tripoli and elsewhere has also been jeopardized by sabotage of parts of the Great Man-Made River Project near Beni Walid, south of the capital, where the pipeline was attacked. (CONTINUED - 406 WORDS)
