The newly-appointed Chairman of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), Farhat Bengdara, has announced lifting force majeure on oil ports and fields and resuming production and exports after over 100 days of suspension.
The announcement by Bengdara came on Friday afternoon in a press conference with several elders and dignitaries from the Oil Crescent region representing the protesters who shut the oil facilities in the first place.
The Oil Crescent region elders said they had agreed to reopen oil fields and ports after the sacking of Mustafa Sanalla from the NOC Chairmanship as this move was their first and foremost demand.
Bengdara promised during the news conference to impalement the government-approved salary raise to all oil sector workers starting this month – July – , vowing to work on reaching oil production rates as high as they were before the shutdown in last April.
The Government of National Unity appointed Farhat Bengdara as NOC Chairman on Tuesday but the eastern-based House of Representatives and Mustafa Sanalla, who has led the NOC since 2014, have rejected the appointment.
