(Bloomberg) -- Libya shut down its biggest oil field on Monday and warned of further outages as a wave of demonstrations against Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah engulfs the OPEC member’s energy industry.

The Sharara field in the west of the country was closed after protesters gathered at the site demanding Dbeibah’s ouster, according to people familiar with the matter. That came after the nearby El Feel deposit was halted for the same reason.

State-owned National Oil Corp. formally suspended loadings from the eastern port of Zueitina on Monday and said it was the “start of a painful wave of closures.”

The NOC has also declared force majeure -- a clause in contracts allowing exports to be stopped -- from Mellitah, a western port fed by Sharara and El Feel.

The shutdowns are the latest in a series of disruptions to hit Libya’s oil industry amid a worsening political crisis.

The country’s crude production has averaged just over 1 million barrels a day this year, down from almost 1.2 million in 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The drop is costing the country millions of dollars in lost revenue and comes when the global oil market is already tight, with Brent crude prices having surged above $110 a barrel following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The outages come as the North African nation, mired in conflict since the 2011 fall of dictator Moammar Al Qaddafi, faces a standoff between rival politicians. Dbeibah is resisting calls from some lawmakers to resign after they declared former interior minister Fathi Bashagha as prime minister in February.

Earlier this month, representatives of eastern commander Khalifa Haftar quit a national military committee that’s meant to ensure a ceasefire holds. They also said Haftar should block oil exports.

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