Petroleum and Natural Gas - Visualizing Conflict Interest (sitios de interés)
Descripción del sitio
Exports (2010)--$7.5 billion: crude petroleum, liquefied natural gas, refined oil productsMajor markets--China, India, Thailand, South Africa, South Korea, United States, Switzerland.
While Yemen is a relatively minor oil producer when compared to its Gulf neighbors, energy exports generate the majority of governmental revenue. Production peaked in 2001 at approximately 440,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) and has declined since. In 2010, the country produced, on average,approximately 260,000 bbl/d. Following a minor discovery in southern Yemen in 1982, an American company found an oil basin near Marib in 1984, and a small oil refinery began operations two years later. A Soviet discovery in the southern governorate of Shabwa proved only marginally successful.. A Western consortium began exporting oil from Masila in Hadramaut governorate in 1993, and production there reached 420,000 bbl/d in 1999. There are new finds in the Jannah (formerly known as the Joint Oil Exploration Area) and east Shabwah blocks.n November 2005, Hunt Oil’s 20-year contract for the management of Block 18 fields ended. Despite agreement with the Government of Yemen on a 5-year extension, the Republic of Yemen Government abrogated the agreement via a parliamentary vote that was not called for in the contract. The U.S.-based Hunt Oil company sued Yemen in a Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce commercial arbitration court in 2005. The court’s decision has been kept confidential, according to both sides’ wishes. Hunt Oil continues to operate in Yemen, although in a much smaller oil exploration block.By 2010, oil exports had grown to approximately $5.5 billion and comprised roughly 70 percent of governmental revenue. Crude oil production has declined steadily in past years due to dwindling reserves, lack of maintenance on some equipment, and a lack of new investment in exploration activities.Oil located near Marib contains associated natural gas. Yemen’s natural gas reserves are currently being exported in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and projects are underway that utilize Yemen’s LNG to fuel several natural gas-fired power plants. The Yemen LNG project at the port of Balhaf on the Gulf of Aden became commercially operational in October 2009 and will generate much needed revenue to partially offset declining oil revenues.