Attackers blow up Yemen pipeline

Unknown attackers in Yemen have blown up the country’s main oil pipeline in the central Marib province, officials and witnesses say.

The incident took place on Friday night when a bomb explosion hit the pipeline linking oil fields in Marib province to the export terminal in the Red Sea.

“We heard a blast in the Serwah area followed by flames rising from the pipeline,” one tribal witness said on Saturday.

A government source confirmed the blast that brought to a halt oil flow via the main crude export pipeline.

“The army is on the trail of the saboteurs and technical teams will immediately start repairing the damage,” the source said.

The Ras Isa pipeline, once carrying around 110,000 bpd of Marib light crude, was repeatedly targeted in attacks that began in 2011.

The country’s oil and gas pipelines have repeatedly been sabotaged by militants or angry tribesmen since a popular revolt against US-backed dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh in early 2011.

The attacks caused fuel shortages and severely slashed export earnings for the impoverished country.

A long closure of the Ras Isa pipeline in 2011 shut down Yemen’s main refinery at Aden, forcing the small producer to import fuel from neighboring Saudi Arabia.