We are pumping more than a million barrels of oil a day, says Libya

CAIRO: Libya, holder of Africa's biggest oil reserves, is now pumping "more than a million" barrels a day as the oil industry recovers from months of armed conflict, the chairman of its state-run National Oil Corp said.

The country will resume normal oil production by the middle of next year, Nuri Berruien told reporters in Cairo, where he attended a meeting of the OAPEC. The North African nation was pumping about 1.6 million barrels a day in January, before the armed uprising began in February that eventually ousted leader Muammar Qaddafi.

The country is seeking to raise its production to 2 million barrels a day in three-to-five years' time, Oil Minister Abdul-Rahman Ben Yezza said on December 14 in Vienna while attending a meeting of the OPEC. Ben Yezza said in Cairo there's a "gentleman's agreement" within OPEC to accommodate the return of Libyan oil.

OPEC set a new production ceiling for the first time in three years at its December 14 meeting. The agreement to raise the group's official output target to 30 million barrels a day underscores how some members are concerned oil at about $100 a barrel may sap demand amid signs Europe's debt crisis is driving the world toward a recession.

The recovery in its production rate to more than 1 million barrels a day means Libyan output now exceeds that of two fellow OPEC members, Ecuador and Qatar. At least four tankers had been booked in the week through December 22 to load 4,20,000 tonne of crude oil in Libya, according to data from Poten & Partners.

The ships have been chartered to pick up the equivalent of about 3.1 million barrels, compared with about 2.7 million barrels booked to load on four vessels the previous week, the New York-based shipbroker's figures showed. OAPEC was established in 1968 to foster the development of the petroleum industry in member states as part of an economic integration plan among Arab countries.

The group said, after the meeting ended, that it set its 2012 budget at 2.07 million Kuwaiti dinars ($7.4 million). OAPEC contains seven nations that are also within OPEC, the broader 12-nation group that influences prices by setting supply quotas.

Libya, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, the UAE and Algeria are all members of both OPEC and OAPEC.

The 12 members of OPEC, which was founded in 1960, are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Venezuela.