The timing and scale of the restart of Libya's oil sector after this year's civil war is one of the key factors likely to influence oil prices in the coming months, and the International Energy Agency thinks production is picking up more quickly than people had been anticipated.
Noting what it called a "herculean" effort by Libyan officials to restore upstream operations, the IEA said in its latest monthly oil market report that the restoration was on a "far faster track" than expected and that capacity should reach 700,000 b/d the end of this year.
That's still a long way short of the pre-conflict levels of around 1.6 million b/d, but would nonetheless mark a pretty rapid recovery. The IEA estimated Libyan production at 350,000 b/d in October, up from just 80,000 b/d the previous month.
Further ahead, Libya's production capacity is expected to rise further to an average of 800,000 b/d in the first quarter of 2012, up from an estimate of 500,000 b/d made in June this year.
Beyond this, capacity should reach 930,000 b/d in the second quarter of next year, 1.07 million b/d in the third quarter and 1.17 million b/d in the fourth quarter, the IEA said.
So far, the surge in volumes has come from the restart of some of Libya's key oil fields, but additional growth is likely to depend more on the state of pipelines, refineries and export terminals.
Libyan exports, perhaps unsurprisingly, are lagging a bit behind production, and averaged around 180,000 b/d in October, according to IEA calculations, with this number seen edging up to around 200,000-250,000 b/d in November.
(Highlights of the monthly report, and access to past issues, can be found here. The most recent issue ultimately is available free of charge, but not until a two-week delay has passed.)
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