While Yemen’s oil production drops slowly:Gas investment opportunities await [Archives:2004/720/Business & Economy]

Yemen's natural gas reservoir is estimated at 16.34 trillion cubic feet, and its reservoir of liquefied gas at about 43 million metric tons, according to officials.
In an interview to the magazine Oil and Minerals, Najeeb al-Aouj mentioned that there were many opportunities for investment in the area of natural gas.
The deputy director-general of the Yemeni company for gas said opportunities lay in four areas:
-exploitation of the natural gas locally as fuel for factories, means of transport and energy generation,
-investment of the natural gas as fuel for cooking and heating in some cities,
-investment of natural gas as raw material in petrochemical and fertilizers industries,
-development of infrastructure for the building of industries that depend on gas, by the establishment of natural gas network of pipelines throughout the country.
The Ministry of Oil and Minerals encourages investment in the petroleum, presently being produced at sector 18. Its daily productive capacity is 1,630 tons under the supervision of the Yemeni company for gas.
Official figures state that the average local consumption of gas is increasing due higher demand because of the rise in population while the production of petroleum is decreasing yea by year.
A study conducted by a New Zealand company expected that the increase in consumption during the years 2004 till 2022 would be around 4 per cent.
A quantity of gas has been provided for the project of natural gas estimated at about 10.20 trillion cubic feet. The project that is composed of a unit for liquefaction is situated in Beljaf seaport on Aden Gulf with a production capacity of 3.1- 3.45 million metric tons per year.
The project is also designed to have two major operative units for each production line.
It has gas pipelines including the main pipeline from Mareb to Beljaf with a capacity of 150 million cubic feet per day and to the branch line from Mareb to Sana'a with the capacity of 100 million cubic feet per day.
The project's cost is estimated at $2.2 billion.
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