Yemen works on oil pipeline repairs

• Tweet

SANAA, Yemen, July 9 (UPI) -- An oil pipeline in Yemen that is the frequent target of attacks should be up and running in a matter of days, the government said.

The Yemeni Ministry of Oil said the Marib oil pipeline should be repaired within a week. Officials said workers were repairing a series of sites along the pipeline damaged during recent attacks, the official Saba news agency reports.

Saba reports that the pipeline has been the frequent target of attacks, which has cost the country as much as $15 million per day in lost oil revenue.

A military committee last week said it suspected some military officials were involved in attacks on the pipeline during last year's uprising against former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Saleh was forced to step down in February. Ahmed al-Zurkah, a freelance analyst on Yemen, told Emirati newspaper The National that Saleh's loyalists were working to undermine the new government.

"They believe the deterioration of security and services would ensure a comeback to power," he said.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said, in its report for June, that political factors in Yemen were in part to blame for a slump in global oil production.