By Hani Amara
Aug 12 (Reuters) - The General Electricity Company of Libya said on Wednesday that an attack on the South Zawiya substation caused a complete outage and loss of power supply to wide areas south of the city of Zawiya.
The company added that repeated attacks led to severe damage to the Zawiya power station, forced the company to withdraw its technical teams, and may cause further delays in maintenance and restoration of electricity services.
The attack followed explosive-laden drone strikes on fuel storage tanks at the nearby Zawiya oil complex, which hosts Libya’s largest operating refinery.
Renewed violence in the strategic Libyan city of Zawiya has disrupted the oil industry in the OPEC member country, with the country’s National Oil Company saying it could declare force majeure if drone attacks on energy assets in the city continued.
(Reporting by Hani Amara, Writing by Tala Ramadan; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)