ST. PETERSBURG, June 10. /TASS/.  Any worsening of the political situation in Libya carries risks for sustaining Wintershall Dea’s current production in the country, Wintershall Dea CEO Mario Mehren said in an interview with TASS on the sidelines of the SPIEF-2019.

"We have offshore production that has the advantage of being offshore so it is not exposed to certain risks and it continues manufacturing, but the main production in Libya for both us and the country is on-shore [production] and currently we are turning out slightly above 50,000 barrels there, but it is not easy. It is a day-to-day struggle and we do not know how long we can keep that production up under the given the circumstances," he said.

Earlier, Chairman of Libya’s National Oil Company Mustafa Sanalla told reporters that armed attacks on oil-manufacturing infrastructure in Libya threaten to destroy up to 95% of oil production in the country.

Wintershall Dea is working at two oil concessions in Libya. According to Reuters, during periods of aggravated military conflicts, the company's production fell below 10,000 barrels per day.

The military conflict in Libya between the national troops and the rebels intensified several months ago. Armed groups conducted a series of attacks on oil-producing assets in the country, which has repeatedly stopped production at the country's largest deposit – the El Sharara oilfield, in addition to halting exports. Due to the unstable situation in the country, Libya was exempt from participating in the production cuts under the OPEC+ agreement.

The 2019 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2019) was held on June 6-8. The forum’s motto this year was "Creating a Sustainable Development Agenda". The organizer for SPEIF-2019 was the Roscongress Foundation. TASS was a media partner, the official photo hosting agency and the operator of SPIEF’s presentation zones with support from multinational firm EY, and the Foreign Investment Advisory Council in Russia.