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Fri, 29 Jun 2012
SANAA, June 29 (Reuters) - Yemen is losing up to $15 million a day in
export revenue because violence has halted shipments from the oil-producing
Maarib province, the oil minister said, adding the government would ensure the
repair of a crude pipeline 'by force'.
Yemen's oil and gas pipelines have long been a target of attacks by
militants in the unstable and impoverished country, but attacks on energy
infrastructure have become more frequent since anti-government protests last
year created a power vacuum.
"After exhausting all peaceful means, we will resort to force. The
country is losing between $10 million to $15 million a day because oil exports
from the Maarib fields have stopped," Minister Hisham Sharaf said on
Friday.
Yemen's main Maarib oil pipeline, which carries crude to the Ras Isa
export terminal on the Red Sea coast, was the target of three consecutive
attacks in October last year alone.
"We will use force to repair the oil pipeline from Maarib to the
Red Sea coast which was bombed last year, after engineering teams have been
prevented from repairing it," Sharaf told Reuters.
The attacks on the pipeline have also forced Yemen's 150,000 barrel per
day (bpd) Aden refinery to close, leaving the country more dependent on imports
and donations.
Yemen's location on the strategically important Bab al-Mandab strait,
through which millions of barrels of oil are shipped between Asia, Europe and
the Americas, makes instability there a risk to global trade.
Saudi state oil giant Aramco has thrown one lifeline after another to
its troubled southern neighbour.
The small, non-OPEC oil producer, which has important liquefied natural
gas investments, has been chaotic since popular uprisings last year brought the
33-year rule of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh to an end.
The Yemeni army notched up a major victory this week in its U.S.-backed
offensive to drive al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country's south by
recapturing strategic cities
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