<article><p class="lead">Tensions have ratcheted up between Libya's new oil ministry and affiliates of state-owned oil firm NOC over delays to a proposed medical clinic for oil workers. </p><p>NOC announced plans last year to open a clinic in the eastern city of Benghazi, to be overseen by its Agoco subsidiary. The firm's chairman Mustafa Sanalla laid the building's foundation stone on 22 March, but the oil ministry has since instructed the company to defer work and has requested further documentation surrounding the project.</p><p>The ministry insists that it is only a temporary postponement, but the decision has faced heavy criticism from some in the oil industry who interpret it as a permanent shelving. Those denouncing the move include Agoco, fellow NOC subsidiary Sirte Oil, Libya's General Union of Oil and Gas Workers and the energy committee of Libya's legislative body, the House of Representatives. Agoco has appealed for support from its parent company and from Khalifa Haftar, leader of the Benghazi-based Libyan National Army (LNA), which was instrumental in the port and field blockades that paralysed Libya's oil sector for much of last year. </p><p>The dispute represents the first point of tension for Libya's new oil ministry since it was formed last month as part of the Government of National Unity (GNU), a provisional government designed to unify rival administrations based in Tripoli and the east of the country until national elections at the end of this year. NOC has acted as de facto oil ministry in the absence of a unified governmental institution since the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The Opec secretariat still lists Sanalla as head of the Libyan delegation on its official site, although newly appointed oil minister Muhammad Oun represented the country at last week's Opec+ ministerial meeting, according to an Opec source. </p><p>NOC has been liaising with the GNU since it was formed last month, lobbying for additional funds for overdue maintenance and development work. This mediation could help resolve NOC's dispute with the Central Bank of Libya (CBL). The firm said in November last year that it would transfer its revenues to the Tripoli-based Libyan Foreign Bank until the CBL <a href="https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2162587">could guarantee transparency over the recipients and uses of its oil payments</a>. It deposited $1.24bn of its February revenues in the Libyan Foreign Bank, but said that it is "reconsidering" these arrangements following the appointment of the GNU. </p><p class="bylines">By Ruxandra Iordache</p></article>
