Zawiya District
Libya's largest refinery west of Tripoli—the infrastructure chokepoint whose control in 2011 decided the revolution and whose decline now throttles western Libya's fuel supply.
Zawiya exists because crude oil needs refining before it reaches consumers. Libya's largest refinery—120,000 barrels per day capacity—sits at the western end of this coastal district, 50 kilometers from Tripoli. Control the Zawiya refinery; control the fuel supply to western Libya.
The district hugs the Mediterranean coast west of the capital, encompassing both the industrial complex and the agricultural hinterland that feeds Tripoli. Zawiya city itself grew around the oil infrastructure, its population of roughly 200,000 dependent on refinery employment and the secondary economy it generates.
Geography made Zawiya strategically critical in 2011. Rebels seized the refinery early in the revolution, cutting fuel supplies to Gaddafi's forces. The regime fought desperately to retake it; when NATO airstrikes destroyed loyalist columns on the coastal highway, Zawiya's loss became irreversible. The battle for western Libya was decided here before Tripoli fell.
After 2011, the refinery became a prize for competing militias. The Nasr Brigade and other armed groups extracted protection payments, disrupted operations during political disputes, and occasionally fought each other for control. Fuel shortages became a weapon in Libya's internal conflicts—whoever controlled Zawiya could create gasoline lines in Tripoli.
Today, the refinery operates below capacity, damaged by years of conflict and neglect. The district's farms continue supplying the capital with vegetables and citrus. Smuggling routes to Tunisia cross the western edges.
By 2026, Zawiya's refinery determines whether western Libya functions. Restore it to capacity, and Tripoli's economy stabilizes. Let it deteriorate further, and fuel dependency on imports becomes permanent.