SANA’A (Dispatches) – A giant crude oil tanker registered and sailing under the flag of Greece has reportedly looted some two million barrels of Yemeni crude oil after it departed a port in Yemen’s eastern province of Hadhramaut as the Saudi-led military coalition and its mercenaries continue to plunder the war-wracked country’s natural resources.
Local source told Yemen’s official Saba news agency on Saturday that the Maran Canopus tanker left Dabba oil export port the previous day, nearly two weeks after it had anchored there.
The sources added that the looted Yemeni crude oil is estimated to be worth $200 million according to prices at international energy markets.
They noted that the Maran Canopus tanker is heading towards the Port of Rizhao in China’s Shandong province.
Dabba port is said to be under the control of the United Arab Emirates and its allied militants.
Back on May 31, the Yemeni Ministry of Oil and Minerals Resources reported that Apolytares crude oil tanker had moored at Ash-Shihr port in Hadhramaut.
An unnamed source at the ministry told Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network at the time that the vessel looted over two million barrels of crude oil, worth more than 270 million dollars.
He added that the proceeds from the looted Yemeni oil were fairly enough to pay the salaries of all civil servants for more than two months.
On July 26, a tanker operated by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) also left a port in Yemen’s southern province of Shabwah with roughly half a million barrels of Yemeni crude oil.
A Yemeni official told Saba news agency that the Gulf Aetos tanker, laden with more than 400,000 barrels of crude oil, departed Rudum port.
The official, who asked not to be named, added that the crude oil cargo is estimated to cost $43.640 million according to international benchmark prices.
He noted that the development falls within the framework of systematic looting of Yemen’s oil reserves and natural resources by the Saudi-led war coalition and its allied militants, as well as tight measures aimed at preventing cash flow into the country.
The official described as “unacceptable” the sale or transfer of shares in any economic sphere of the country by the former Saudi-backed Yemeni government.
Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the U.S. and other Western states.
The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crush the Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.
While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.