Is Libya Quietly Becoming the Biggest Oil Prize the West Can’t Afford to Ignore?

At around the same time as OPEC raised its long-term oil demand forecast for the third consecutive year — now expecting global consumption to rise 19 million barrels per day (bpd), or 18%, by 2050 — Libya’s state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC) announced that the country’s oil production is now at the highest level in 13 years.

Its current 1.487 million bpd crude output is just a whisker away from the NOC’s short-term strategy of producing 1.5 million bpd of oil, which opens the way for the long-term strategic…