Militants blow up oil pipeline in southeastern Yemen

Unknown militants have exploded a major oil pipeline in Yemen’s southeastern province of Shabwa, Yemeni government officials say.

The attack targeted the main pipeline in the Usaylan district of Shabwa province on Sunday, stopping oil shipments to the export terminal on the Gulf of Aden, China’s official Xinhua news agency quoted an unnamed local government source as saying.

A military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that the assailants planted a bomb near a section of the oil pipeline.

Local authorities said repairing the pipeline is expected to take one to three weeks.

Oil revenues make up more than 70 percent of Yemen’s state budget. Oil and gas products also account for over 90 percent of Yemen’s exports.

Militants and tribesmen have repeatedly attacked oil and gas pipelines in Yemen over the past two years in a bid to win concessions from the central government, causing fuel shortages and slashing export earnings in the impoverished country.

On November 30, Yemeni tribesmen blew up a part of the country’s main oil export pipeline in the east of the capital Sana’a.

Yemen uses the pipeline to carry crude oil from the Maarib fields in the center of the country to the Ras Isa oil terminal on the Red Sea.

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