Yemen oil revenues drop almost 37 percent in 2014

The Yemeni central bank says the nation’s oil revenues suffered a drop of about USD one billion or 37 percent in 2014 due to plunging crude prices and attacks on the impoverished country’s pipelines.

The bank said in a statement that the Arab country’s revenues amounted to USD 1.673 billion last year, compared with USD 2.662 billion in 2013, Saba state news agency reported on Saturday.

“The main reasons behind the decrease were the drop in Yemen’s production capacity and in oil prices as well as the attacks on the pipeline” linking oil fields in Ma’rib Province with the coastal Hudayda Province,” the statement added.

Yemen is a minor oil producer but its income from oil production constitutes some 70 percent of government revenue and about 90 percent of its exports.

Tribesmen have repeatedly sabotaged Yemen’s oil and gas pipelines to put pressure on the central government to meet their demands.

Last November, heavily armed tribesmen blew up a major crude oil pipeline in Yemen’s central province of Marib. The attack hit a section of the pipeline in the Sarwah district of the province, situated approximately 120 kilometers (74 miles) east of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a. The explosion stopped oil flow from the Safir oil fields in Marib Province to the Ras Isa floating export oil terminal on the Red Sea coast.

According to government figures, attacks on infrastructure have cost the impoverished country USD 4.5 billion between March 2011 and March 2013 alone.

The global oil prices have plunged by nearly 60 percent since June 2014. Analysts blame oversupply of the black gold as well as the weak global growth for sliding oil prices.