Libyans protest gas pipeline
Libyan protesters demanding more rights for the country’s Amazigh minority shut off Libya’s sole natural gas export pipeline to Italy yesterday, a union official said, although supplies were not thought to be immediately affected. Protesters of the Amazigh minority, or Berbers, last month seized the port at the Mellitah complex, located some 100km west of Tripoli, and have already shut down oil exports from there. The port is operated by Libya’s National Oil Corp and Italian energy company Eni. “We tried to convince them not to close the pipeline, but it’s closed now,” Munir Abu Saud, head of the local oil workers’ union, said yesterday.