Libya Eastern Oil Company Blocks Tanker Loading Crude for Tripoli Rival
An oil company set up by Libya's eastern government is preventing a tanker from loading a cargo for its Tripoli rival, the National Oil Corporation (NOC), officials said on Tuesday.
The eastern company, also calling itself the National Oil Corporation (NOC), ordered workers at Marsa el-Hariga port in eastern Libya not to load the tanker, which had been waiting for two days, a port official said.
An eastern NOC official said the move was in line with the east's attempt to export a shipment of 650,000 barrels of oil last week in defiance of the authorities in Tripoli, part of a power struggle between Libya's rival administrations.
The tanker, Seachance, had been initially due to load on April 26-28 and was part of the Tripoli NOC's loading programme, an NOC official in the capital said.
(Reporting by Ayman Al-Warfalli and Ahmad Ghaddar; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Patrick Markey and Gareth Jones)