Leaking gas pipe pollutes several Libyan wells

The Libyan National Office for Environment Protection and the National Libyan Petroleum Enterprise (ENP-Naft-Libya) held an emergency meeting on Tuesday night to discuss the pollution of several wells in the agricultural district of Gargouza, 30 km West of Tripoli, caused by a leaking underground gas pipeline.

According to Panafrican news agency "PANA," the gas pipeline links the Zawia refinery (45 km West of Tripoli) to the gas tank depot of the Al-Matar Road, 15 km south-east of the Libyan capital.

The meeting, which was attended by ONPE Chairman, Htiwich Faraj Htiwich, and the Secretary (President) of the ENP, Ahmed Abdulkarim, and several experts, examined the needed urgent measures to cleanup and purify the polluted area, and ways to compensate farmers of the surrounding areas.

The official from the Libyan Petroleum Company attributed the leak to erosion and added that the repairs were being delayed by the people who demanded compensation before the start of the operations aimed at locating the leak in the gas pipeline, which passes through several fields.

Abdulkarim assured that the ENP had taken all the necessary steps to check every inch of the gas pipeline, which is more than 25 years old. The ONPE Chairman urged the Libyan company to develop further measures for the protection of the environment.

In this respect, he assured that the office had decided to set up a special committee of experts which would be in charge of monitoring the steps taken by ENP in the fields, the oil terminals and the warehouses in order to protect the environment.