Libya’s oil output rises following OPEC accord to limit production

Libya’s oil production rose to 500,000 barrels a day and will further advance by the end of the month as the holder of Africa’s largest crude reserves was exempt from an OPEC accord to limit production, according to an official of the state oil company. The country’s production will reach 600,000 a day by the end of October, said Ibrahim Al-Awami, the head of National Oil Corp’s oil measurement department. Libya was pumping 485,000 barrels a day last week, added NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla. Oil capped the biggest monthly gain since April after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed during a meeting in Algiers last week to trim supply for the first time in eight years. While quotas will be decided at the group’s official meeting in November, Libya, Nigeria and Iran have said they are exempt and Iraq has said it doesn’t accept OPEC’s estimates of its production levels. Libya, with Africa’s largest crude reserves, produced 260,000 barrels a day in August, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The country produced about 1.6 million barrels a day of oil before the 2011 uprising that ousted longtime leader Moammar Al Qaddafi, but output has withered as rival militias vie to control energy facilities.