News - Yemen: Informed sources revealed that the French oil company Total in the Balhaf Ghaziyeh facility in Shabwa Governorate, southeast of Yemen is preparing for so production.

The sources stated that the maintenance teams started maintenance work represented in repairing the transmission and production lines as a result of stopping production for years, within the framework of moves that pave the way for re-plundering and exporting liquefied gas from the facility.

Observers considered this step to be uncalculated, especially after Sana'a warned foreign companies that plunder Yemen's wealth to stop any extraction or export of fuel ships. 

It is noteworthy that the Total company had evacuated late last year the Balhaf Al-Ghaziyeh facility due to its fears of being targeted following the air warning operations carried out by Sana’a forces on the ports of exporting wealth in the east of the country.

For its part, local media confirmed that the French company Twal is preparing to restart the most important liquefied gas production facilities in Yemen.

Labor sources said that the Yemen Liquefied Natural Gas Company informed its employees of readiness to return to work, but did not specify a date for resuming operation.

Emirati media had indicated in a report that bin Zayed and Macron had signed several agreements to enhance global energy security.

The issue of ten years, which subjected a large number of former Yemen's officials to legal accountability later by the Public Prosecution in Sana’a, on charges of harming the country’s interest and issuing contracts and agreements for foreign companies based on incorrect and misleading data.

Over those years, Total exercised a monopoly with its partners, and during the period between 2009 and 2014, it adopted the lowest indicators for the sale of Yemeni liquefied gas, as the American “Henry Hope” indicator, with the intention of evading any demands to amend the contractual prices that it agreed upon with the Yemeni government in The nineties of the last century (it approved the price of only $3 per million calories, while it was selling for between $10 and $15). 

This fraudulent policy was considered by the Sana’a prosecutor, and instructed the Ministry of Oil in mid-2014 to reserve Yemen’s right to fully compensate Total and its American partners for the quantities sold at prices lower than the Asian and European indicators. 

These differences were estimated at $8 billion, in addition to Yemen’s losses resulting from losses of crude oil, liquefied petroleum gas and upstream fees, which the company and its partners deliberately handed over to the American “Hunt” company whose contract in Yemen expired in early 2005, and all its assets were transferred to the government company Safer.

Total has agreed with all the partners in the Yemen Liquefied Gas Company to reproduce, export and market gas.

Nevertheless, Total still controls the sources of liquefied gas, and refuses any supervision of its production operations, amid doubts that it deliberately withdrawn large quantities of gas during the period between 2009 and 2014, after it was found that it had withdrawn more than 8 million tons in 2013. in violation of the agreements and contracts signed with it.