Saudi Arabia will donate fuel to Yemen, throwing a second lifeline in six months to its southern neighbor to prevent a shortage there from escalating into chaos, industry sources said Thursday. The amount Yemen will receive in January will be around 500,000 tons. Yemen relied on three million barrels of Saudi-donated crude oil to run its refinery in June, when its main pipeline was shut after blasts, unleashing a fuel shortage which saw people getting killed at dry petrol stations. The pipeline, which was repaired during summer, is shut once again, after consecutive blasts on it in October. The lack of crude flow in the pipeline has also forced the Aden refinery, which mainly produces to meet the domestic fuel demand, to halt operations. The sources said the 500,000 tons to be donated to Yemen next month will be made up of gasoline, diesel and some fuel oil. “They have already started buying some of it from the market,” the second source said. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia promised to provide the newly formed government of Yemen with urgently needed aid, mainly petroleum products. The decision came after the formation of a unity government on Dec. 7, as stipulated in a Gulf-brokered accord that paves the way for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave office following months of deadly protests. Saleh has handed over his constitutional powers to his deputy. Nationwide demonstrations raging since January, combined with confrontations between government forces and Al-Qaeda militants, have exacerbated the dire economic conditions in the impoverished nation. The southern Arabian Peninsula country produces 300,000 barrels per day of crude oil, of which it exports 105,000 bpd. But supplies have repeatedly been interrupted due to sabotage attacks.
