Yemen to build $895 million oil refinery

Published December 2nd, 2001 - 03:00 GMT

Yemen has signed a contract with a Gulf-owned firm for the construction of an $895 million oil refinery in Mukalla in the southeastern province of Hadramut, the official SABA news agency reported Friday, November 30.It said Prime Minister Abdul Kader Bajammal attended the signing ceremony with executives from the United Company for Petroleum Investment (UCPI), which is owned by investors from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The facility will have the capacity of refining 110,000 barrels of crude per day (bpd), and its construction will create some 1,500 jobs, it said. Under the deal, UCPI will both build and run the refinery, as well as funding its construction, said Abdul Karim Matir, head of the Yemeni Investment Authority.

The new refinery will allow Yemen to reduce imports of refined oil products, Matir said, quoted by SABA. The project will be implemented in two phases, with the first phase costing $400 million.

Yemen has two refineries, one in the southern port city of Aden and the other in the central province of Maareb. The Aden refinery, built by British Petroleum (BP) in 1954, is the older and bigger of the two, with a capacity of refining 150,000 bpd. Yemen currently produces 480,000 bpd, and oil revenues last year jumped 40 percent to $1.4 billion. — (AFP, Sanaa)