(Bloomberg) -- Libya said Oil Minister Mohamed Oun has been suspended pending an investigation, fueling uncertainty in an industry beset by unrest.

Some violations were committed by Oun that “led to neglecting the rights of the Libyan state, circumventing the law, and wasting public money,” Abdulla Gadirboh, the head of the government oversight agency, Administrative Control Authority, told Bloomberg.

In his capacity as the head of the committee negotiating with foreign oil companies whose concession contracts had expired, Oun renewed these agreements until 2032 without putting it before the legislative authority to pass a special law specifying and amending the quotas, he added.

Oun himself said earlier in a text message that he hadn’t received any notice and didn’t know the reason for the suspension.

Other violations included Oun telling the head of state producer National Oil Corp in May 2021, that the council of ministers had approved the swap of certain amounts of crude oil with refining companies in exchange for fuel products, Qadirboh said. However, no such correspondence was found between the minister and the cabinet.

The move comes at a time when Libya has been grappling with worker protests that regularly shut oil production and curb flows to global markets. The country has been mired in turmoil ever since the overthrow and killing of leader Moammar Al Qaddafi in 2011 and is split between dueling administrations in the east and west. 

The OPEC member’s energy sector has been at the heart of these divisions. Oun in 2021 attempted to suspend Mustafa Sanalla, the long-standing head of National Oil Corp., stoking concerns about deep rifts within the industry. 

Sanalla finally left the post in mid-2022 amid security problems and political strife that sent Libya’s oil output to below 700,000 barrels a day. Production recovered to 1.2 million a day later that year and is currently around that level, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

(Updates with exclusive comments with the head of the regulatory authority)

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