BENGHAZI, Libya -- Three days of attacks by supporters of Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi have halted oil production in rebel-held fields in the country's east, a rebel spokesman said Wednesday.
The rebels had just begun exporting oil again after a weekslong hiatus in effort to raise funds for their struggle against Qaddafi who still controls the western half of the country.
The rebels' have a deal to sell their oil from the port of Tobruk via Qatar and use the profits to pay salaries and buy food, medicine and arms to fight Qaddafi. But government forces appear to be targeting the rebels' finances by striking their oil fields.
"I think we will not depend on oil revenues in the coming stage because our production has been affected in this crisis," rebel spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga said.
Ghoga said groups of armored vehicles attacked the rebel-held oil field of Messla on Monday and Tuesday and the field of Sarir on Wednesday.
While the extent of damage remains unclear, he said that the rebels can no longer sustain the 100,000 barrels a day they had been producing. By contrast, in 2009, Libya produced 1.65 million barrels of oil per day.
"Col. Qaddafi seeks to deprive us of even this by hitting the oil fields that feed this port," Ghoga said.
The rebels still have about one million barrels in storage in Tobruk, he said, which is being exported through the Qatari deal.
The rebels have responded to the attacks by enhancing security, Ghoga said, transferring fighters from the front line with Qaddafi's forces to protect the oil fields.
"This is our wealth and we have to protect it," he said.
The two fields are part of the massive Sirte Basin region, which is one of the world's largest oil fields and holds 80 percent of the country's oil reserves.
Sarir field was discovered in 1961 and is the largest oil field in the country, with estimated reserves of 12 billion barrels. A pipeline carries its oil north to Tobruk.
Messla, discovered in 1971 and just 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Sarir, is estimated to hold 3 billion barrels of oil.
Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa, even more than Nigeria, at an estimated 46.4 billion barrels as of January 2011 according to Oil and Gas Journal.
