Late on 24 March, the Government of National Unity’s (GNU) Ministry of Interior confirmed that it had instructed the Criminal Investigations Department to send specialized teams to inspect the explosion site on the Sharara – Zawiyya pipeline in the Hamada area following a fire on 17 March. The MoI said, “The inspection resulted in the recovery of an exploding M-62 Russian-made aerial bomb weighing approximately 250 kg, in addition to fragments of an exploding 130mm rocket. It was determined that these were located near valve BT-13 on the Sharara Oil Company’s pipeline, which runs to the Zawiyya refinery.” [There is no Sharara Oil Company – presumably the MoI meant the Akakus Oil Company, which operates the Sharara oil field.] It said that the projectiles were handled according to established technical and security procedures, and the site was fully secured.
The MoI gave no further details about who might have been responsible for this apparent sabotage, nor did they make any pledges to find out. There were also reports the same day that additional devices may still be buried beneath the valve area.
The NOC has not commented further on the incident – it had said initially that the explosion was due to a leak on a valve.
On 29 March, maintenance on the damaged pipeline from Sharara to Zawiyya was completed and testing operations took place.
Late on 30 March, the NOC confirmed that full production has resumed at Sharara and El-Feel fields following the repair work. It noted that production was only partially disrupted by the incident on the pipeline. It also reiterated that the fire at valve 13 at kilometre 538 was due to a leakage. It made no reference to any sabotage attempts or explosives. The NOC confirmed that output is gradually returning to normal levels and thanked the national teams’ efforts.