Yemen restarts main oil export pipeline after repairs
SANAA, October 19, 2014
Yemen has resumed the pumping of oil through its main export pipeline after repair works were completed, an industry source said, following an attack by tribesmen on the pipeline two days ago.
Yemen's oil and gas pipelines have been repeatedly sabotaged by tribesmen feuding with the state, especially since mass protests against the government created a power vacuum in 2011, causing fuel shortages and slashing export earnings for the impoverished country.
Yemeni news agency Saba said engineering teams had managed to repair the pipeline in the area of Sarwah in Marib province. An industry source told Reuters that pumping had resumed.
Yemen has said oil typically flows through the Marib pipeline, one of its main petroleum export routes, at a rate of around 70,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The pipeline carries crude from the Marib fields in central Yemen to the Ras Isa oil terminal on the Red Sea. Before the spate of attacks began three years ago, the 270-mile (435-km) pipeline carried around 110,000 barrels per day to Ras Isa.
Heavily armed tribes carry out such assaults to extract concessions from the government on providing jobs, settling land disputes or freeing relatives from prison.
Most of Yemen's output is from the Marib-Jawf area in the north, with the rest coming from Masila in the southeast. -- Reuters
