Terror militants affiliated with Al Qaeda blew up Yemen’s only gas export pipeline early December, in a further blow to a vital piece of infrastructure for an impoverished country battered by 20 months of war, Reuters reported.
The explosion occurred in the remote desert area of al-Uqla in the southern province of Shabwa,and severd the link between Yemen’s gas-producing Marib region and the export terminal of Balhaf on the Arabian Sea, according to Asharq Al-Awsat English Edition.
Oil and gas once accounted for most of Yemen’s state revenue before a civil war spurred by Iran-aligned Houthis for an attempt at a power grab halted their export and unleashed a humanitarian crisis.
In related news, in late August, Yemen had resumed production and exports from its Masila oilfields for the first time since a civil war began in March 2015. Yemen port authorities had said late July that they would reopen the crude terminal at Ash Shihr, about 800km east of Aden, where oil from the fields run by PetroMasila and most other Yemen fields was lifted. Furthermore, the oil tanker Seaprince had lifted a 1m barrel cargo of Masila crude oil in early August and a 3m barrel cargo was due to be lifted by the oil tanker Ataka.
