Libya crude buyers unmoved by Thinni’s call to move east

The internationally recognised government’s insistence that crude oil purchases negotiated with the traditional headquarters of National Oil Corporation (NOC) in Tripoli are illegal, and its attempts to establish its own credible Cyrenaica-based NOC management have so far fallen on deaf ears. The engineers responsible for day-to-day production are unwilling to transfer their allegiance from the corporation’s previous chairman Mustafa Sanalla despite his supposed dismissal last November. Established international buyers of Libyan crude also see no reason to switch. Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni’s amplified rhetoric is regarded as a symptom of his administration’s growing desperation for the cash that it needs, not only for running expenses but also to purchase the weapons with which it hopes to settle the civil war.