TRIPOLI (Reuters) -The head Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), Farhat Bengdara, has resigned due to “health issues,” and Masoud Sulaiman has been appointed as acting chief, the state oil company said on Thursday.
The Government of National Unity’s head, Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, accepted Bengdara’s resignation and appointed Sulaiman pending the formation of a new board of directors at the next cabinet meeting, NOC added in a statement.
Bengdara, who was appointed in July 2022 to replace veteran NOC chief Mustafa Sanallah, submitted his resignation to Dbeibah three times in one year as he wanted to have a back surgery that would require him to rest for months and could not be postponed, a source from Bengdara’s office told Reuters.
The NOC runs the technical sector of oil and gas production, along with a number of smaller subsidiaries, in OPEC member Libya, which is the third largest oil producer in North Africa.
Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011, Libya’s oil production has been repeatedly hit by groups blocking facilities, sometimes to demand material benefits but also as a tactic to achieve wider political ends.
Oil prices fell on Thursday, with Yemen’s Houthi militia expected to halt attacks on ships in the Red Sea, and investors weighed strong U.S. retail data.
(Reporting by Ahmed Elumami in Tripoli, Yomna Ehab in Cairo, Hani Amara in Istanbul, and Ayman Al-Warfali in Benghazi: Editing by Mark Potter and Alexander Smith)
