Yemen’s collapse as an energy producer

Conflict and unrest has hit the country’s oil output by more than 90% in just six years

Yemen is close to falling off the bottom of the list of global oil producers, with output declining from 424,000 barrels a day in 2004 to something close to 20,000 b/d today – the war and the collapse of state institutions mean that detailed figures are unavailable. A day when the country climbs back up that list seems distant, with no prospect of an early end to the conflict. The war has also halted Yemen’s liquefied natural gas-export industry, but the processing and export facilities at Balhaf on the Gulf of Aden coast are undamaged. A barrage of damaging blows has struck Yemen’s energy sector over recent years: a breakdown of law and order when the Arab Spring erupted in 2011; the war re