Yemen LNG hit by fourth act of sabotage
The Yemen LNG facility suffered another act of sabotage in the early hours of Tuesday morning, as an explosion on the pipeline that connects gas reserves to the liquefaction plant was confirmed.
The blast occurred at 01:15 local time Tuesday 21 August, 171km north of the 6.7m tonnes per annum (mtpa) liquefaction facility at Balhaf, according to a release from the company.
There were no causalities as result of the incident.
As yet, there is no official word from Yemen LNG regarding the extent of the damage, or a timetable for restart at the facility.
The 320km pipeline transports around 1.14 billion cubic feet/day (11.8 billion cubic metres/year) from Block 18 in Marib province in northern Yemen to the Total-operated export facility at Balhaf in the Gulf of Aden.
This is the fourth attack on the pipeline since the start of the year, with Al-Qaeda linked militants taking responsibility for the three previous explosions that occurred in March and May, forcing Yemen LNG to cancel 14 cargoes.
The impact on buyers in northeast Asia was not immediately clear, although numerous sources said that any prolonged outage will decrease availability over the approaching winter months, which could force one or two end users back out into the spot market for additional volumes.
The Yemen LNG project has contracts to supply 2mtpa to Total, 2mtpa to South Korean incumbent KOGAS and 2.55mtpa to Paris-based energy group GDF SUEZ, which in turn has committed additional volumes from the plant to KOGAS.
Total holds a 39.62% stake in the project. Other shareholders include US independent Hunt Oil (17.22%), Yemen Gas Co (16.73%), South Korea's SK Energy (9.55%), KOGAS (6.00%), Hyundai (5.88%), and Yemen's General Authority for Social Security and Pensions (5.00%).
Other Related Stories
