
(Photo Credit: AP)
On 21 August, a source in the Supreme Economic Committee of the Sanaa government dismissed a report by Reuters that Yemen’s oil and gas revenues totaled $739.9 million for the first half of 2022.
The source said the figures Reuters claims from the Bank of Aden report are incorrect and that energy revenues exceeded over $2 billion.
“The [energy sales] proceeds are submitted to the National Bank of Saudi Arabia, and the forces of aggression do not show any data about the export, which is controlled by a mini-committee headed by the Saudi Ambassador Al Jaber and Maeen Abdul Malik,” the source claims, adding that such data was also not revealed by Yemen’s Ministry of Oil.
The Sanaa government source says at the onset of 2022, production reached 2.6 million barrels per month, while the volume of Yemeni crude oil exports from January to June this year was 18,299,400 barrels.
Despite frequent shipment seizures of Yemeni oil from the Saudi-led coalition, revenues from exported oil in the first two quarters amounted to one trillion and 200 billion riyals, which equates to just over two billion dollars.
Earlier this week, the Saudi-led coalition forces seized a Yemeni oil tanker ship in the Red Sea preventing it from reaching the port of Hodeidah.
The spokesman of the Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC), Issam al-Mutawakil said the foreign-backed coalition seized the diesel ship “Golden Eagleii” despite it receiving UN authorization to enter the port.
Al-Mutawakli also condemned the silence of UN envoy Hans Grundberg over such violations and for not fulfilling agreements to allow oil tankers into the port. He said the Saudi-led coalition refuses to fully commit to the terms of a truce brokered by the UN.
The latest ship seizure comes on the heels of revelations made by Yemen’s former Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi who claims that French special forces arrived in Yemen’s Shabwah province to take control of a vital gas production facility.
Since the start of the truce in April, Riyadh’s coalition has been accused of plundering $919.6 million worth of Yemen’s crude oil and natural gas revenues.