Economic Sabotage of Aden Refinery
Another story thats nearly beyond belief. After most of the other public corporations were “privatized”, the Aden refinery remains an attractive target. Yemen Post:
The Aden Refinery is facing another challenge as economists warn about the bids to privatize it, after the refinery, one of Yemen’s most crucial economic facilities, survived a sale bid that came within a drive targeting most institutions in the south.
Under the resisted privatization attempts backed by influential figures, the refinery would have been handed over to the National Petroleum and Gas Company.
Furthermore, economists warned last week the refinery has become threatened by halt in a month, after the decision of the Crude Oil Marketing Commission to limit importing oil derivatives and reduce the ratio of crude oil refinement at the facility to 50 percent.
If the facility shuts down, the halt will lead to 3500 layoffs at the Aden Port and lay further burden on the facility which bought 3 million barrels of crude oil from the Mareb Refinery to refine and sell them to the company a month.
Under the mid-September decision made during the commission meeting presided by Prime Minister Ali Mujawar the refinery will start, from this month, importing only 1.650 million barrels a month.
The decision seemed to be within the bids to hamper the refinery after the Anti-Corruption Commission revealed that the administration of the refinery was involved in importing contaminated diesel. Still, the officials involved in the illegal deal remain unidentified.
Early this year, the government abandoned promises to modernize the facility, though a British company had completed studies on the matter.
The studies were handed to the authorities four months ago, when the government said it was seeking another strategic partner to help finance the modernization.
Announcing its inability to finance the modernization, Yemen rejected in 2006 a $ 1 billion Chinese loan offer to modernize the facility, even the offer was described as perfect.
The move drew criticism over declining the Chinese proposal, and inability announcement, despite between $ 300-400 million was spent monthly to buy oil.
Moreover, recent reports revealed the production of the refinery decreased 90.000-100.000 from 200.000 barrels a day.
