Libya Protesters Enter Mellitah Gas Complex, Threatening Greenstream Pipeline to Italy

Anti-government protesters entered Libya's Mellitah Oil and Gas complex, according to OilPrice.com, threatening to halt natural gas exports to Italy through the Greenstream submarine pipeline. Demonstrators told Middle East Online, as cited by OilPrice.com, that their aim was to "halt gas exports to Italy to pile up economic pressure on the Government of National Unity," led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah. The underlying grievance is chronic power cuts and rising electricity bills.

Eni, NOC, and the Greenstream Chain

The Mellitah complex is the onshore hub for Libya's western offshore gas fields: Bahr Essalam, Bouri, and Wafa. Gas gathered and compressed at Mellitah feeds directly into Greenstream, a 540-kilometre submarine pipeline that crosses the Mediterranean to Gela, Sicily. Greenstream was constructed for US$6.6 billion and entered service in October 2004, per Wikipedia's documentation of the pipeline's history.

Agip Gas B.V. operates the Greenstream pipeline as a joint venture between Italy's Eni and Libya's National Oil Corporation, each holding a 50 percent economic interest. The Mellitah Oil and Gas complex itself runs under the same Eni-NOC ownership structure with identical stakes. Eni serves simultaneously as the upstream equity producer at the Libyan fields, the pipeline operator through Agip Gas, and the primary offtaker of Libyan gas for the Italian market. A shutdown at Mellitah travels up every link in that chain simultaneously.

17.9 Million Euros Per Day of Gas at Risk

Greenstream was originally designed for 8 billion cubic metres per year and later expanded to 11 Bcm annually, per Wikipedia. That translates to roughly 1.06 billion standard cubic feet per day. TTF European gas futures were trading at 57.67 euros per megawatt-hour in early Monday trading, down 1.13 percent, per Trading Economics. At that price, applying the standard conversion of 0.293 megawatt-hours per MMBtu, the full Greenstream capacity carries a daily market value of 17.9 million euros. A one-week disruption would represent roughly 125 million euros of withheld supply to the Italian market.

Italy's Growing Greenstream Dependence

Italy diversified its gas supply routes after Russia curtailed Nordstream flows in 2022, replacing Russian pipeline volumes with increased Algerian transit through the Transmed pipeline and Libyan flows through Greenstream. Libyan gas has grown in relative importance to Italian buyers because it is pipeline supply rather than LNG: it requires no regasification capacity and bypasses the Strait of Hormuz entirely. That Hormuz-bypass characteristic has added to Greenstream's value in 2026.

QatarEnergy extended its force majeure on LNG deliveries through October 2026 due to the Hormuz closure, as Oil Authority reported. European buyers have responded by bidding up Atlantic Basin LNG cargoes to compensate for lost Qatari volumes. TTF, which traded above 66 euros per megawatt-hour during peak Hormuz anxiety, fell to 57.67 euros on Monday as ceasefire optimism spread. A Mellitah shutdown would apply upward pressure to TTF from a different geographic direction.

Libya's Broader Output at Risk

The Mellitah complex produces both gas and associated crude from its offshore fields. Libya is OPEC's second-largest African oil producer, per OilPrice.com. The National Oil Corporation has stated a long-term production ambition of 2 million barrels per day, a target that recurring tribal and factional disputes have prevented it from sustaining. Force majeure events across Libyan export terminals in 2023 and 2024 periodically removed hundreds of thousands of barrels per day from global supply during periods of elevated prices.

The current dispute is civil in character: protesters opposing the Dbeibah government see Greenstream as economic leverage over Tripoli, not a geopolitical instrument aimed at a foreign power. Neither the European Union nor NATO has a direct mandate to intervene in a domestic civil dispute. Any disruption would have to resolve through Libyan political negotiation between the NOC, the Government of National Unity, and the eastern-based rival government.