Arkenu Oil, a private oil and gas development and production company, exported 1 million barrels of Sarir/Mesla crude from Marsa el-Hariga port on July 10. The shipment was transported by the Suezmax vessel Zeus. According to shipping agent and port reports, Chinese trading firm Unipec chartered the vessel. The Zeus’ bill of lading indicates that the Libyan state-owned NOC sent the consignment on behalf of Arkenu.
Libyan crude sales have historically been the preserve of NOC and a handful of international oil firms that hold stakes in the country’s upstream, including Italy’s Eni, TotalEnergies, and Austria’s OMV. Turkey-based commodities trader BGN, which does not have upstream production in Libya, also regularly appears on loading programs as a seller of the country’s crude.
According to a document dated July 10, NOC allocated to Arkenu an unspecified share of production from its subsidiary Agoco’s Sarir and Mesla fields in return for Arkenu carrying out development work at the sites. This implies that Agoco is paying Arkenu for the work in crude. Arkenu’s 1 million-bl cargo is worth around $84 million at prevailing market rates, Argus estimates.
Arkenu, set up in early 2023 in the eastern city of Benghazi, says it owns modern drilling rigs and has a team of experts “who have held high positions in major oil production and development companies.” It is unclear what work Arkenu has carried out for Agoco. Sarir and Mesla accounted for most of Agoco’s roughly 280,000 b/d of output in 2023.
Libya faces political division between an internationally recognized administration in the west, which has historically controlled oil revenues, and a rival administration in the east, where about three-quarters of the country’s production capacity is located. Agoco operates in the east, while NOC is based in the west.
