When last week news broke that Libya’s UN-recognized government and the eastern rival government might just be willing to settle their differences and hold elections early next year, its significance for oil markets passed more or less unnoticed as everyone was watching OPEC and Iran. Now, the head of Libya’s National Oil Corporation has suggested that this significance could turn out to be pretty major. Earlier this week, Mustafa Sanalla told Bloomberg that the NOC hoped Libya would be exempted from any new OPEC-wide production cuts that are under discussion by some OPEC members right now in response to the latest oil price decline. “The OPEC community has understood the difficulties we face –- Libya has withheld more than any other country from the global market,” Sanalla said. While this may be an overstatement—after all, in terms of production withheld Libya has got nothing on Venezuela—it is a fact […]