Page 13 - DMEA Week 27

DMEA POLICY DMEA

Houthi team sent to repair tanker

as Yemen increases output

YEMEN AN official from Yemen’s Houthi-led govern- The vessel has a total storage capacity of 3mn
ment announced last week that a maintenance barrels in 34 tanks, and was previously used to
Safer is understood to team had been sent to repair the Safer floating store and export oil produced in the central oil-
have 1mn barrels of oil storage and offloading (FSO) vessel, which fields of Marib.
on board. remains anchored offshore.
Supreme Political Council representative Increasing output
Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi was quoted by Mid- In June, the Saudi-backed government of Abd-
dle East Monitor as saying that the repair crew Rabbu Mansour Hadi said that it had plans to
may be unable to prevent the vessel from leaking increase oil exports. Hadi’s energy minister Aws
because access to the required equipment was Abdullah al-Awd told Reuters: “The oil minis-
being prevented by the Saudi-led coalition. try has put forward a plan to re-export crude oil
“The Republic of Yemen has done its best, from all oilfields in Marib and Shabwa … and we
despite [a] lack of necessary resources,” he added. have succeeded in rehabilitating al-Nashama oil
In July last year, UN officials were prevented port on the Arabian Sea.”
from visiting Safer to assess the scale of the dam- The plans would see total oil production
age amid fears that gas build-up in storage tanks increase by 25% to 75,000 barrels per day, a far
could lead to an explosion. cry from the pre-civil unrest level of 127,000 bpd
The vessel is moored near the Red Sea port of in 2014.
Ras Isa, north of Hodeidah, and is still thought In June 2019, Australia’s Petsec Energy said
to have a cargo of more than 1mn barrels of oil that it was preparing for the restart of production
on board. and that work had commenced on an oil transit
A solution is yet to be found that will lead to pipeline ahead of completion by the end of the
the safe unloading of the cargo, with the Houthis year.
demanding guarantees that they will be entitled It also noted that Austria-based OMV had
to the oil, which is worth $40-45mn (GBP31- “maintained oil production in the order of
35mn) at current crude prices. 14,000 [bpd] since April 2018 in the neighbour-
Meanwhile, the Houthis have insisted that the ing Block S-2 from its Habban oilfield (350mn
Saudi coalition should be held accountable for barrels)” with shipments of 500,000 barrels
any leaks. made every “1 to 2 months”. ™

Week 27 09•July•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P13