"This is a rich country. I am working a lot with some actors here to increase the oil production both in the east and in the west, to reopen the Zintan [El-Sharara] oil pipeline…. to have really more oil and more money coming into the coffers of the Central Bank of Libya," Kobler said in an interview.
Zintan is one of the biggest cities in north western Libya, southwest of Tripoli. The El-Sharara oil pipeline has been repeatedly shut down by Zintani militias because of their rejection of the Tripoli-based government's authority. Due to the closure of the pipeline, Libya lost some $10 billion, as of mid-2015.
Libya has been in a state of turmoil since 2011, when a civil war broke out in the country and long-standing leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown. The country has been contested by two rival governments — the internationally-recognized Council of Deputies based in Tobruk and the Tripoli-based General National Congress — since mid-2014.
