Libya's Armed Conflict Could Send Oil Prices Soaring
Any damage to exports will tighten global supplies already constrained by chaos in Venezuela and sanctions on Iran.
Spreading violence could jeopardize Libyan production.
Photographer: MAHMUD TURKIA/AFPJust as its oil sector looked set to stage a recovery, Libya is heading back towards bloody chaos that puts output and exports at risk. A disruption to supplies from the North African country would hit European refiners and raise oil prices around the world.
Libya – one of my Shaky Six OPEC oil producers at risk of unintended output declines – intends to export more oil in April than it has done in almost any month since the ouster of Moammar Qaddafi in 2011. But those plans could fall apart in the face of renewed violence, as the internationally recognized government in Tripoli vows to “cleanse all Libyan cities of the aggressors,” referring to Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army.