The chairman of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC), Mustafa Sanalla, has called for the Libyan state to clearly demonstrate how oil revenues are distributed.

“A lot of the bad behaviour we are seeing in Libya is the result of perceptions of unfairness and perceptions of corruption and almost complete lack of transparency,” he told a Chatham House conference in London.

Sanalla said better community relations are needed to improve security and the best guarantee of better community relations would be clearly demonstrating that the country was using its oil revenues fairly.

“Economic justice is only possible if there is transparency,” he said. “The current lack of transparency is a threat to the survival of our country.”

Libya’s NOC only received half of its capital expenditure budget from the Libyan government in 2017, according to Sanalla.

“In terms of investment, we assume that this year, as in 2016 and 2017, political actors will attempt to use control of the state budget process to control NOC,” he said.

Sanalla said that under-investment in oil infrastructure was hampering the NOC’s efforts to raise the country’s capacity to produce crude.

The NOC chairman also criticised international powers for stoking instability in the country by manipulating factions within Libya for their own benefit.

“Countries are doing deals with militias and supporting people that are very possibly war criminals,” he said.

At the end of 2017 it was producing just under 1 million barrels a-day (b/d), close to a four-year high.

Before the 2011 uprising Libya was producing 1.6 million b/d.

Both Royal Dutch Shell and BP agreed to annual deals to buy Libyan crude earlier this month.

Shell’s deal with Libya’s National Oil Corporation was the first of its kind since 2013.