Reuters reported that Yemen LNG expects to resume operations at the Balhaf liquefied natural gas export terminal after repairing its sabotaged feed pipeline and has boosted security to prevent further attacks.

The company said that the terminal run by France's Total was forced to close after the pipeline carrying gas to it from central Yemen was blown up on October 15th 2011 but could resume exports soon after annual maintenance is concluded.

Mr Francois Rafin GM of Yemen LNG said that "The teams have been fantastic. We are back in business Balhaf restarted on October 26th 2011. The USD 4.5 billion plant the impoverished country's biggest industrial complex had been scheduled to shut for annual maintenance on October 23rd 2011 but the operators began that work after the pipeline was blown up.

Yemen LNG said in a statement that any cargoes that have not been exported in late October because of the outage will be delivered by early January, while those scheduled for November loading will go ahead as planned.

Analyst said that the sabotage of the main pipeline supplying the 6.7 million tonne per year LNG export terminal follows a series of attacks on oil pipelines which have intensified the country's economic crisis in 2011. Most attacks by anti government tribesmen or al Qaeda militants have so far focused on Yemen's small oil pipeline network but the increasing importance of gas as a source of government funds could prompt more attacks.

Yemen LNG said that it has boosted security to protect the 320 kilometers long pipeline route across the sparsely populated, mountainous and increasingly lawless country. Surveillance and the protection of the pipeline have been further upgraded after the sabotage.

(Sourced from Reuters)