Libya’s El Sharara oilfield, the country’s biggest, remains closed because an armed group is still there, the chairman of state oil firm NOC said on Sunday.

Mustafa Sanalla rebuffed calls by eastern Libyan forces called Libyan National Army (LNA), which had taken control of the 315,000 barrels a day field and declared it secure.

“The field is closed because of the presence of a group of civilians, this armed militia, and some military people with them,” the NOC chairman said in the video posted online.

The oilfield deep in Libya’s south has been closed since December when state guards and tribesmen seized it to make financial demands, the latest in several such closures over the past few years.

Source: Reuters