An explosion has rocked a crude oil pipeline that feeds the Es Sider sea terminal in Libya, an oil source in the country said.

The Mediterranean port of Es Sider, the largest oil depot in Libya. The blast occurred near Marada, on the pipeline belonging to the Waha oil company, the source told Reuters.

The port is now controlled by the powerbroker General Hafter’s forces. Later reports said that oil had been re-routed and less than 100,000 barrels a day in exports will be lost for about a week. Nevertheless oil prices in the US hit a new high on the news. a twitter photo of the export pipeline 26 Dec 17

”A military source told RIA Novosti that the “large” explosion at the pipeline was the result of a terrorist attack“The fighters belonged to either (al-Qaeda-affiliated) Benghazi Defense Brigades or Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) as they are terrorists who carry out diversions to cripple oil production facilities.” Russia Today Report

The news of the Libyan blast saw oil prices spike to above $65 a barrel on Tuesday, Reuters reported.”In March ’17 … Es Sidar was recaptured by forces loyal to Libya’s eastern-based military commander, Khalifa Haftar, and resumed operations”.

Repsol still looting Libya… Profits Soar while local Tuareg and Tebu go Hungry

The explosion will not however disrupt exports from the Sharara oilfield where Spanish company Repsol has the biggest 60% stake. Sharara now exports nearly 300.000 barrels of oil a day, making enormous profits for Repsol.

Chief Executive Officer – Josu Jon Imaz boasted that its ‘upstream’ profits soared by $69 million when the pipeline from Sharara to the port came back online after protest Blockades in the second quarter of 2016. (source Repsol).

Repsol’s local company has contributed nothing that we know of to alleviate the extreme suffering of the impoverished local people suffering racist discrimination in the Ubari area next to the oilfield. Instead it is concentrating on trying to boost its profits by pumping out Libyan oil even faster, aiming for 330,000 barrels a day in the near future .

Repsol is joint operator with both the National Oil Corporation (NOC), France’s ‘imperialist’ Total, and Austria’s OMV which also have stakes in what is currently Libya’s biggest oilfield. The Sharara oilfield is situated in the middle of what was once Lake Megafezzan, once bigger than the UK, which is now dried up, it may not rain for 5 years in the area. . All that is left are a dozen small salt lakes near Ubari fed from the extensive Sahara aquifer beneath, which may be already damaged or in imminent danger from Repsol’s oil extraction. The Tuareg eat the red shrimps which thrive in the ultra salty water.

The Sharara pipeline exits through Zawyra near Tripoli, and the oil is mostly unrefined due to limited capacity. There are few benefits for local people who have repeatedly blocked the pipeline in protest, the last time in Oct 2017.

Right beside the Sharara field stand the ruins of the town of Ubari where a dispute grew into a proxy civil war in 2015 which pitted the oppressed Tuareg and the Tebu (or Tubu) tribes against each other and is still smouldering among the armed and unemployed youth. Ruins of Ubari town, next to the Sharara oil bonanza of Repsol which is pumping out the riches of the country.