Oil Minister: US-Saudi Aggression Causing Huge Economic Losses of Billions of Dollars

Losses of the oil and minerals sector due to the Saudi-led aggression are very large and are estimated at billions of dollars as many giant projects in this important economic sector have been stopped, Minister of Oil and Minerals Ahmed Abdullah Dars said.

“The coalition of aggression was not satisfied with those losses and the siege on the Yemeni people, but resorted to detaining oil derivatives ships and preventing their entry to the port of Hodeidah to humiliate the people,” Minister Dars said during his meeting on Saturday with several media representatives.

He indicated that the acts of maritime piracy and the detention of oil ships entail large financial fines that the citizen must bear.

Dars pointed out that those fines prevented citizens from benefiting from the reductions in fuel prices that the world had witnessed, indicating that the fines exceeded $101 million during 2019 and the first part of this year.

“The ministry would end its procedures for filing lawsuits against the Saudi-led aggression to obligate it to pay fines for delaying oil ships, especially since all of these ships have obtained entry permits from the United Nations,” Dars added.

He expressed his regret at the complicity and apparent silence by the United Nations regarding the arbitrary practices and acts of maritime piracy by the coalition of aggression and its continued detention of oil ships, causing an imminent humanitarian catastrophe for the Yemeni people.

The Minister of Oil and Minerals affirmed that most service sectors are threatened to stop at any moment due to the lack of sufficient quantities of petroleum materials and diesel.

“More than a thousand newborns and preterm infants are threatened with death in the first hours of stopping the provision of petroleum products to hospitals, as well as endangering the lives of thousands of patients who depend on dialysis at risk,” he added.