Libya will not be able to achieve its target of increasing oil output by five-fold this year unless the government invests in repairing the damage to the oil infrastructure of the war-torn North African country.

“If we receive about $1bn, we can do a lot,” Mustafa Sanalla, the head of National Oil Corporation (NOC), told news agency Reuters.

NOC, he said, has already submitted its budget to the Presidential Council on 3 July, but it is still waiting for funds to be allocated.

Libya, the Opec member that holds Africa’s largest oil reserves, is currently producing 207,000 barrels a day (b/d), a fraction of the peak of 1.6 million b/d recorded before civil war erupted in the country. The government relies heavily on sale of oil for revenues and it has been facing serious cash flow issues following the disruption to oil exports.

However, the NOC chief says investments made in oil infrastructure can multiply the country’s revenues by generating more in crude sales.

NOC, which is now a unified body after a merger of rival eastern and western factions, plans to bring oil output to more than 900,000 b/d by the end of the year, and to 1.2 million b/d within a year.

However, cash and security concerns make it difficult to achieve these targets. Storage capacity at the El-Sider oil terminal has gone down to 750,000 barrels, from 6 million barrels, due to attacks over the course of the revolution.

NOC also owes tens of millions of dollars to international oil service companies, and one service company alone is owed $80m in payments, Sanalla said, declining to name the firm. “They were thinking of closing shop in the country, but after my meeting with them, they decided to stay. They’ve been in Libya for 50 years.”

Sanalla said it would not be safe to send repair crews to El-Sider and Ras Lanuf, two major terminals that are set to reopen under a recent deal with guards who had been blockading them, until force majeure from the two ports is lifted.

However, the El-Sharara and El-Feel fields could add 200,000 b/d to production within weeks if a deal to reopen them were reached.