Ras Lanuf fires extinguished

26.01.16. Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) has issued a statement saying that fires at the Ras Lanuf terminal storage tanks had finally been extinguished, following a series of attacks by militants affiliated to Islamic State.
Firefighters managed to control and extinguish completely all of the fires on the morning of Sunday 24 January, the NOC said. At least five of the terminal’s 13 tanks were damaged as a result of Thursday’s attack, firefighters have said. One of the tanks collapsed completely.
The NOC statement went on to say that the effects of the disaster “could have been minimised and the burning of millions of oil barrels could have been avoided” if the guards at the terminal had complied with NOC’s request to approve the loading of crude oil into a chartered tanker ‘Nassau Energy’ anchored near Ras Lanuf. NOC claims the ‘Oil Installations Guards’ refused to let it berth and load the oil.
Speaking on Sky News Monday, the NOC’s chairman Mustafa Sanalla said war-torn Libya needs billions of dollars of investment to rebuild its oil industry infrastructure. For example, in the past three years, 14 of 19 tanks at the Sidra terminal have been destroyed, and one of the country’s major oil fields in the interior of the country has been severely damaged.