المركز الأفريقي للاستشارات African Center for Consultancy

A new report by The Sentry revealed that state-subsidized fuel smuggling in Libya between 2022 and 2024 cost the country about $20 billion (£15 billion) in losses — one of the largest cases of systematic looting of national resources in recent years.
The report said Libyan politicians and security leaders who claim to fight corruption and organized crime are in fact the masterminds behind the fuel-smuggling networks, often with support from foreign actors. It noted that part of the imported fuel was smuggled into Sudan, where it helped finance and prolong the ongoing civil war.
Although fuel smuggling is not new in Libya, the report confirmed that the amount of money stolen has surged dramatically since 2022, coinciding with changes in the leadership of the National Oil Corporation (NOC) — one of the few institutions still operating across the political divide between east and west since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The organization explained that the NOC adopted a system of bartering crude oil for imported refined fuel. However, large quantities of this fuel were not distributed domestically at subsidized prices but were instead resold abroad for huge profits.
According to the report, Libya’s fuel imports rose from 20.4 million liters per day in 2021 to more than 41 million liters per day by the end of 2024, despite no justified increase in domestic demand. More than half of the imported gasoline was reportedly sold on the black market through organized smuggling networks.
The report noted that Libya still lacks adequate refining capacity and that fuel smuggling in 2024 alone exceeded $6.7 billion — an amount that could have tripled the country’s spending on health and education.
It added that since 2021, smuggling has become part of a systematic policy of plundering public wealth led by corrupt political and economic elites working with criminal networks and officials controlling border crossings, ports, and transport routes. Destinations for smuggled fuel include Sudan, Chad, Niger, Tunisia, Albania, Malta, Italy, and Turkey.
The report stressed that these activities deprived the Central Bank of Libya of vital foreign currency revenues and weakened the credibility of the NOC, which remains the backbone of the Libyan economy.
In response, the NOC announced that it had halted the barter system in March 2025, noting that the quality of imported fuel between January and September of the same year declined by 8% compared to 2024. However, independent experts maintain that import levels remain far above the country’s actual needs, indicating that fuel smuggling continues at a high rate.