No oil is currently being produced in territories controlled by Libya’s rebels and resuming production could take years, senior Libyan rebel leader Mahmud Jibril said yesterday.

“We are not selling oil,” Mr Jibril told journalists after a meeting with Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger in Vienna.

“Wells, especially in the east, have been destroyed. First we have to fix them and get them up and running again. That could take months, years,” he added.

“It will all depend on the speed with which we secure financial means,” said Mr Jibril.

He has been campaigning for the freeze on funds belonging to Muammar Gaddafi’s regime to be lifted to benefit the rebels.

Austria said it would consider such a move, in coordination with other European Union members. Earlier this month, the minister of oil and finance in the Libyan rebel council, Ali Tarhouni, had said the rebels hoped to start producing 100,000 barrels of oil per day “soon”.

Libya, a key crude-exporting nation that was producing some 1.49 million barrels per day before the rebellion broke out in mid-February, has seen its output slashed since the revolt began.