CAPITAL: Sanaa
MONETARY UNIT: Rial
REFINING CAPACITY: 120,000 b/cd
OIL PRODUCTION: 365,000 b/d
OIL RESERVES: 4 billion bbl
GAS RESERVES: 16.9 tcf
A liquefied natural gas project under way in Yemen in 1997 was the largest single project ever undertaken in the nation.
The goverment owns 30% interest and France`s Total SA 70%.
Due on stream late in 2000 or early 2001, the project included a two-train liquefaction plant with total production capacity of 5 million tons/year and an export terminal at Bal Haf on the Gulf of Aden, 300 km east of Aden.
A 320-km, 34-in. pipeline will move gas from fields in the Marib area to Bal Haf with a spur line to the capital.
Full capacity could be reached after the first year of production and will be maintained for at least 25 years.
Marib area fields had been on production since 1985. Associated gas is reinjected. Proved reserves dedicated to the LNG plant amount to about 10 tcf of high-quality gas, according to Total. The company believed Yemen reserves could support additional LNG trains at Bal Haf.
Bal Haf can supply markets in the Far East and Mediterranean.
In December 1996, Yemen LNG Co. signed a memorandum of understanding with Turkey`s Botas under which the parties agreed to negotiate terms of a long-term LNG sales contract.
Turkey might take all production from one of the two liquefaction trains, about 2.6 million tons/year, under a 24-year contract from plant start-up. Botas thus might become the "critical mass buyer" that Total said was needed.
Negotiations were under way in 1997 with potential buyers in Europe, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, Thailand, and India.
Some buyer countries might become shareholders in Yemen LNG, a Total official said. Sales will be on either an fob or cif basis, with pricing not necessarily linked to the price of crude oil.
In other activity, Kerr-McGee Yemen Ltd., a unit of Kerr-McGee Corp., Oklahoma City, in 1997 signed two production-sharing agreements with Yemen`s Ministry of Oil and Mineral Resources and state-owned Yemen Co., establishing an exploration position as operator of East Al Hajar Block 51 and Hazar Block 50, covering 10 million total acres.
