The Yemeni Oil and Minerals Ministry announced on Sunday the beginning of pumping crude oil through the country's main export pipeline following a five-month halt after the anti-government armed tribesmen attacked it in mid March, the official Saba news agency reported.
"The process of pumping crude oil from block 18 of Marib province through the pipeline began on Saturday after the ministry fixed it on Friday," Saba quoted an unnamed official of the ministry as saying.
"Crude oil now is pumped from block 18 in Marib to the export terminal port of Ras Easa in the Red Sea province of al-Hodayda," the official added, Xinhua reported.
The repaired key export pipeline locates in northeast of Marib. The damage to the export pipeline has caused an acute oil shortage across the impoverished country since March, forcing the Yemeni cash-stripped government to import crude oil to try to meet consumption of the local market, but in vain.
The Arab state was also gripped by political conflicts triggered by six-month-long protests demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The repair came days after chieftains of anti-government armed tribesmen in Marib, who attacked the pipeline in March, conveyed a letter to the government to ask the latter to repair it in order to end fuel crisis, a security official of the Interior Ministry told Xinhua.
The attack was carried out by tribesmen of Sheikh Ali Jabiral- Shabwani in mid March to revenge for the air raid targeting al- Qaida militants launched by the government, which mistakenly killed Ali's son, the deputy governor of Marib in May 2010.