UPDATE 1-Yemen's Safer oil company resumes pumping to Arabian Sea terminal - official

Yemen's Safer oil company resumed pumping oil from its fields in Shabwa in southern Yemen to a terminal on the Arabian sea for export abroad, a company official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Safer, owned by the internationally recognized government of Yemen, is currently pumping at a rate of 5,000 barrels per day and expects to ramp up pipeline throughput to 15,000 barrels per day, the official said. Yemen's oil output has collapsed since 2015 when a Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen's war to try to restore the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power after it was ousted by Iran-aligned Houthis in Sanaa.

Hadi's government controls the oil-producing provinces of Shabwa and Hadramout, while the Houthi group controls the capital Sanaa and the oil terminal of Ras Issa on the Red Sea coast. Yemen produced an average of 50,000 bpd of crude in 2018 compared with around 127,000 bpd in 2014. Last year it exported some quantities of oil.

Safer's official said the company will use tankers to ship the crude from Iyad field (Block 4) to the Arabian Sea pipeline in Shabwa to avoid the Ras Issa terminal.