reuters
Independent crude shipment to market challenges Tripoli
* Navy has threatened tankers loading crude at seized ports
* Western powers worried over increasing Libyan chaos
(Adds remarks by U.S. ambassador to Libya in paragraphs 23-24)
By Ulf Laessing and Feras Bosalum
TRIPOLI, March 8 (Reuters) - Libya threatened on Saturday to
bomb a North Korean-flagged tanker if it tried to ship oil from
a rebel-controlled port, in a major escalation of a standoff
over the country's petroleum wealth.
The rebels, who have seized three major Libyan ports since
August to press their demands for more autonomy, warned Tripoli
against staging an attack to halt the oil sale after the tanker
docked at Es Sider terminal, one of the country's biggest. The
vessel started loading crude late at night, oil officials said.
The oil dispute is just one facet of the deepening turmoil
in the North African OPEC member, where the government is
struggling to control militias that helped topple Muammar
Gaddafi in 2011 but kept their weapons and now challenge state
authority.
A local television station controlled by protesters showed
footage of pro-autonomy rebels holding a lengthy ceremony and
slaughtering a camel to celebrate their first oil shipment.
In the distance stood a tanker. The station said the ceremony
took place in Es Sider.
Prime Minister Ali Zeidan appeared on television to warn the
tanker's crew. "The tanker will be bombed if it doesn't follow
orders when leaving (the port). This will be an environmental
disaster," Zeidan said.
"They are now trying to load oil," he said, denouncing it as
a criminal act. Authorities have ordered the arrest of the
tanker's crew.
There was no immediate sign of the country's armed forces
moving toward the port. Analysts say the military, still in
training, would struggle to overcome rebels battle-hardened from
the eight-month uprising against Gaddafi.
Zeidan acknowledged the army had failed to implement his
orders last week to stop the protesters sending reinforcements
from their base in Ajdabiyah, west of the regional capital
Benghazi, to Es Sider.
"Nothing was done," Zeidan said, adding that political
opponents in parliament were obstructing his government. He said
North Korea had asked the ship's captain to sail away from the
port but armed protesters had prevented that.
Abb-Rabbo Albarassi, the eastern autonomy movement's
self-declared prime minister, said Zeidan's government had
failed to meet its demands to share oil wealth, to investigate
oil corruption and to grant the regional autonomy.
"We tried to reach a deal with the government, but they and
parliament ... were too busy with themselves and didn't even
discuss our demands," he said at the televised ceremony.
"If anyone attacks, we will respond to that."
A successful independent oil shipment would be a blow to the
government. Tripoli had said earlier it would destroy tankers
trying to buy oil from Ibrahim Jathran, a former anti-Gaddafi
rebel who seized the port and two others with thousands of his
men in August.
Jathran, who was seen attending the televised ceremony, had
commanded a brigade of former rebels paid by the state to
protect petroleum facilities. He defected with his troops,
however, to take over the ports.
In January, the Libyan navy fired on a Maltese-flagged
tanker that it said had tried to load oil from the protesters in
Es Sider.
The North Korean-flagged Morning Glory, which was previously
flagged in Liberia, had been circling off the Libyan coast for
days. It tried to dock at Es Sider on Tuesday, when port workers
still loyal to the central government told the crew to turn
back.
Storage tanks at Es Sider and other seized ports are full,
according to oil sources.
It is extremely unusual for an oil tanker flagged in
secretive North Korea to operate in the Mediterranean, shipping
sources said.
A spokesman for state-run National Oil Corp (NOC) said the
Morning Glory was owned by a Saudi company. It had changed
ownership in the past few weeks and previously been called Gulf
Glory, according to a shipping source.
The Saudi embassy in Tripoli said in a statement that the
kingdom's government had nothing to do with the tanker, without
saying who owned it.
PROTESTS
Western powers worry Libya will slide into deeper
instability or even break apart as the government, paralysed by
political battles in parliament, struggles to assert control of
a vast country awash with arms and militias.
At a Libya conference this week in Rome, Western countries
voiced concern that tensions in Libya could slip out of control
in the absence of a functioning political system, and urged the
government and rival factions to start talking.
U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones said in a series of
tweets on Saturday that the only parties authorized to sell
Libya's oil are the National Oil Corp and its subsidiaries and
partners.
"Any purchase of oil within Libya from anyone other than
those entities amounts to theft from the Libyan people," she
said, adding that companies that engage in illicit trade with
separatist groups in Libya risk liability in multiple
jurisdictions.
Libya's government has tried to end a wave of protests at
oil ports and fields across the vast desert state that
have slashed oil output, the country's lifeline, to 230,000
barrels per day (bpd), from 1.4 million bpd in July.
Tripoli has held indirect talks with Jathran, who seized the
port, but his demand for a greater share of oil revenues for the
east, like the region had under Gaddafi's predecessor King
Idris, is sensitive for a government that worries this might
lead to secession.
Jathran has teamed up with another set of protesters
blocking oil exports at the 110,000-bpd Hariga port in Tobruk,
also located in the east.
Libya's defence minister held talks this week with
protesters blocking the 340,000-bpd El Sharara oilfield in the
south but there is no word on whether it will reopen soon.
The protesters, from a tribal minority, want national
identity cards and a local council, demands the minister has
promised to study.
(Additional reporting by Ghaith Shennib and Ayman al-Warfalli
and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Patrick Markey,
Andrew Roche and Lisa Shumaker)
