Photo caption: Oil platform
Algeria’s oil and gas firm Sonatrach resumed its exploratory drilling in Libya’s Ghadames basin in mid-October, Tripoli’s National Oil Corp (NOC) said in a statement on Thursday.
The well is located in contract area (95/96) in the Ghadames Basin, near the Libyan-Algerian border, NOC said in the statement. It is also approximately 100 km (62.14 miles) from Wafa field.
“The company plans to complete drilling at an expected final depth of 8,440 feet,” said the NOC.
It said that Sonatrach halted its activities and left the site more than 10 years ago “due to unstable security situation at that time.”
Libya is one of Africa’s biggest oil producers but output has been disrupted repeatedly in the chaotic decade since 2014, when the country split between rival authorities in the east and west following the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.
