Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) has shut down a processing unit at the 120,000-b/d Zawia refinery after a blockade cut crude supply through the pipeline feeding the plant from the Sharara field, the Libya Herald reported.

The shutdown hits one of the country's key refining assets. Zawia, located west of Tripoli on the Mediterranean coast, ranks as Libya's second-largest refinery and depends on crude delivered from the Sharara field in the Murzuq Basin via pipeline. With the line blocked, the affected unit no longer receives feedstock and NOC has taken it offline.

Sharara, one of Libya's largest oil fields with production capacity of about 300,000 b/d, has repeatedly become a flashpoint for supply disruptions. Pipeline blockades and force majeure events at the field have interrupted flows to both export terminals and domestic refiners on multiple occasions in recent years, keeping Libyan output volatile and unplanned outage risk elevated.

The immediate consequence for Zawia is a reduction in refining throughput and, by extension, in domestic fuel supply from the plant. Libya relies on its domestic refining system — Zawia alongside the larger Ras Lanuf complex on the eastern coast — to cover part of its refined product demand, and prolonged outages typically push the country toward heavier product imports.

For now, the reported shutdown covers a single unit rather than the full refinery, meaning Zawia can continue partial operations on available feedstock. NOC has not announced a timeline for restarting the unit, and any recovery depends on the blockade being lifted and crude flows through the Sharara pipeline resuming.

The incident fits a familiar pattern in Libyan operations, where infrastructure blockades have repeatedly crimped both upstream production and downstream processing. Each interruption carries a direct cost in lost throughput and export volumes, and NOC has repeatedly warned that repeated closures damage equipment and complicate the restart of fields and plants once disputes end.

The watch item: restoration of flow on the Sharara–Zawia crude line and NOC's announcement of a restart date for the idled unit. Until then, Zawia runs at reduced rates and Libya's product balance tightens.