The surreal nature of Libya's politics, with its two prime ministers and two parliaments claiming the right to rule from opposite ends of the country, is encapsulated in the gleaming glass building that houses Libya's National Oil Corporation (noc) in the capital, Tripoli. Here Mashal-lah Zwai, the oil minister appointed by a self-declared government in Tripoli (which the world does not recognise) says he is in charge and that he is working amicably with his rival, Mustafa Sanalla, the noc chairman and the de-facto oil minister of the internationally supported government, based in the eastern town of Baida. With the largest oil reserves in Africa, it is little surprise that Libya's state-run petroleum industry is one of the prizes in a power struggle that many fear could tip into all-out civil war. But despite the crisis, oil-production levels are rising. Some 800,000 barrels flow per day, around half of the amount pumped in summer 2013, before protests and blockades across the oil belt drove production as low as 215,000 b/d. All sides have an interest in maintaining output, given that oil revenues form the pillar of Libya's economy. Proceeds from exports are channelled first into a state-owned bank overseas, then transferred to the Central Bank, which issues salaries to 1.7m public employees on both sides of the conflict.
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