Yemen has received a batch of diesel from Saudi Arabia at the port of Nashtoon in the al-Mahra governorate, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Wednesday. It marked the first delivery of the new Saudi oil derivatives of 4,000 metric tonnes of diesel. It is expected to help operate more than 70 power generation plants across Yemen.
The order was dispatched “as part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s continuous support to the Yemeni people” and following the directives of King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “in response to a request by the Yemeni government to help it provide oil derivatives,” SPA reported. The new oil derivatives are an extension of previous grants totaling $4.2 billion, the latest of which was a grant of $422 million that was completed over a year. It is said to have contributed to the country’s economic stability, enhanced the budget of the Yemeni government, raised the purchasing power of Yemeni citizens and improve the security conditions.
The previous oil derivatives grants provided electricity to 760,000 subscribers of the Public Electricity Corporation, with an average consumption per subscriber of 37 kilowatts per hour, SPA reported. Over 9.8 million residents benefited between May 2021 and April 2022, where the grants contributed to raising the Public Electricity Corporation’s revenues and saving 20 percent of the Yemeni government’s budget, it added. The grants also reportedly contributed to reducing the difference of produced energy and sold energy by 21 percent during the supply duration of oil derivatives to power plants, especially in the governorate of Aden.
The latest grant is part of a larger support system of the Saudi Development and Reconstruction Program for Yemen (SDRPY), which has undertaken 224 development projects in seven main sectors: education, health, water, energy, transport, agriculture and fishery, and infrastructure
