The giant 1.1bn cfd Mellitah gas processing complex west of Tripoli has been offline since 1 May to enable three-week “comprehensive renovation” of both the plant itself and the country’s two largest gas-condensate fields which supply it, offshore Bahr Essalam and Wafa on the Libyan border. All are operated by the Mellitah Oil & Gas JV grouping Eni with Libya’s NOC, with Mellitah also supplying the Greenstream pipeline linking the plant with Italy – Libya’s only gas export route.

The planned shutdown, timed to coincide with a relatively low domestic gas/power demand period between Ramadan (22 March-20 April) and the summer peak, comes after unplanned outages in both 2021 (MEES, 2 July 2021), and 2022 (MEES, 18 February). It also comes as Eni looks to advance $8bn plans to develop an additional 6tcf of offshore gas reserves for processing at Mellitah (MEES, 3 February). (CONTINUED - 1081 WORDS)