Tripoli— Libya has witnessed a sharp decrease in oil revenues by 22.6 per cent in 2024 comparing to the previous year recording only US$15.51 billion compared to $20.04 billion during the year 2023, leading to a deficit of US$5.2 billion, according to the Central Bank of Libya (CBL). This is bad news for the financial situation in the country.
“Oil revenues and royalties transferred to the Central Bank of Libya during the period amounted to $18.6 billion, and the Central Bank of Libya’s revenues amounted to $3.2 billion, while foreign exchange uses until the end of December 2024 amounted to $27 billion,” the CBL said in a statement released on Monday 13 January 2025.
As a result, there has been a “net foreign currency deficit of $5.2 billion due to a decrease in oil revenues transferred to the Central Bank of Libya during the period of $6.8 billion compared to 2023,” the CBL added.
Regarding the release, the CBL said “the statement in its new form comes within the framework of the CBL’s efforts to achieve the highest rates of disclosure and transparency, in response to local and international requests.”
On the previous year’s budget, the Bank said the total revenue for the year 2024 amounted to 123.5 billion Libyan dinars (LYD) and the expenditures reached 123.2 billion LYD.
The data shows that the revenues from the fee imposed on foreign exchange sales amounted to 27.2 billion LYD, while the local market’s revenues from oil derivatives witnessed a sharp decline, as only 151.6 million LYD was received during the period, it said.
The CBL said that 67.7 billion LYD has so far been distributed to the branches of commercial banks in all Libyan cities during the period. Until 30th of September 2024, an amount of $950 million has been allocated for development projects in the Eastern Province. The fuel import bill has been paid directly by the National Oil Corporation (NOC) since Nov 2021, it added.
In Libyan dinars, the data show money that was spent on salaries amounts to 67.6 billion, subsidies 16.1 billion, National Oil Corporation (Extraordinary financial arrangements) 6.7 billion, General Electricity Company (Extraordinary financial arrangements) 3.1 billion. This is in addition to development projects’ allocations (pending) at 10.0 billion and oil and electricity projects’ allocations (pending) at 10.0 billion,