As fighting between rival government forces in Libya continues, the country’s oil production sharply rises and falls. Production was reported to be 900,000 barrels a day in September, but that fell to about 500,000 barrels by November. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of crude available to meet world demand.

Libyan crude oil is among the world’s best because it can be refined into many products. But it no longer has the same market share it once did.

“It’s a very light crude. The world actually now has a lot of light cruder because of the surge in U.S. production. But still you get a very high yield of transportation fuels – distillate, gasoline – that kind thing,” said John Kingston, global director of news for Platts, a leading provider of energy sector information. “So you get a lot of the transportation fuels that have the most value and fewer of the fuels that have lesser value. So, it’s always been considered like the champagne of crudes.”