When Libyans lined up for fuel during the Eid al-Adha holiday last week, the Government of National Unity in Tripoli responded the way it always responds to crises: it formed a committee. The National Oil Corporation chairman met with the Administrative Control Authority, agreed to establish a joint oversight body, and issued statements promising normalcy. A tanker carrying 32,000 metric tons of gasoline docked in Benghazi for good measure. Problem solved, at least on paper.

The reality is more damning. Libya spent over one billion dollars on imported fuel in May alone, with the National Oil Corporation contracting 17 tankers of gasoline in a single month, one of the highest import figures in the corporation’s history. NOC revenues for the same period reached roughly four billion dollars. This is an oil-producing state spending a quarter of its monthly revenues buying fuel it theoretically extracts from its own ground, then watching 40 percent of those imports disappear into smuggling networks before they reach ordinary citizens. The Central Bank of Libya has been paying fuel bills directly, at a rate approaching 635 million dollars per month. The annual subsidy bill has reached approximately 60 billion dinars, with an estimated 30 percent smuggled out of the country entirely.

These are not the symptoms of a supply problem.........

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