Yemen oil production suffers setback

SANAA, Mar 18, 2011- Oil companies working in Yemen gave mixed reports on the effects that a pipeline blast had on the country's oil production.

An attack on an oil pipeline this week disrupted production at two oil fields tied to the country's transit network. The pipeline was designed to carry about 120,000 barrels of oil per day.

French supermajor Total owns a minority stake at one of the fields where production was disrupted. The company said its production was cut by the attack though Austrian energy company OMV said its output was fine, Bloomberg News reports.

The attack on the oil pipeline was the second such assault since November.

Yemen gets about one-third of its gross domestic product from oil though production has dropped by almost half from their 2002 levels of 457,000 barrels per day.

Protesters inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt are pressuring Yemeni President Abdullah Ali Saleh to step down. His struggles are compounded by a Shiite insurgency in the north, a violent secessionist movement in the south and the looming presence of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Source: (UPI)