Yemeni Research Center Exposes Corruption and Oil Field Looting in Shabwa
A Yemeni research center has uncovered corruption scandals and widespread looting tied to the sale of oil fields in Shabwa province, shedding light on the United Arab Emirates’ covert schemes aimed at seizing Yemen’s natural wealth.
The Here Aden Strategic Studies Center reported that eastern Yemen has become a flashpoint for conflicts and military confrontations, particularly in the resource-rich triangle encompassing Shabwa, Marib, and Hadramout. These ongoing disputes, the center noted, are largely fueled by economic ambitions centered on control over the country’s oil and gas reserves.
According to the center, a renewed push has been underway since early 2025 to reshape the oil and gas sector. Efforts include renegotiating contracts with energy companies, resuming production in previously suspended fields, and revamping extraction operations to boost output.
Meanwhile, Yemen is experiencing an acute financial and economic crisis, exacerbating hardships for its war-torn population. The halt in crude oil exports—formerly at 80,000 barrels per day, generating $6 million daily—has compounded economic struggles. Corruption within refineries and petroleum imports has allowed elites to manipulate the market, hoarding resources and inflating prices, deepening the suffering of ordinary citizens already burdened by war and blockade.
Economic reports estimate that Yemen has lost approximately $13 billion in oil and gas revenues since the war’s outbreak in early 2015. The conflict has driven away ten international energy companies and numerous local businesses. Oil and gas—once the backbone of Yemen’s national budget—are no longer exported, leading to a depletion of foreign currency reserves and plunging the country into one of the world’s most severe economic and humanitarian crises, as classified by the United Nations.
Shabwa province, located in southern Yemen, is among the country’s most resource-rich regions, alongside Hadramout. It hosts key oil fields, export terminals, and strategic energy infrastructure. However, like other oil-rich areas in the south, Shabwa has suffered from systemic exploitation, with power concentrated in networks built over decades of Yemeni unity. The absence of strong state oversight has enabled corruption to flourish, with influential tribal figures and former regime loyalists, along with southern collaborators operating under fraudulent companies, benefiting from oil wealth at the expense of the public.
These networks have formed lucrative partnerships with international oil firms, which have taken advantage of the region’s weak regulatory framework, carrying out low-cost exploration and extraction with minimal oversight.
Shabwa also possesses over 16 exploratory oil blocks with high potential for new discoveries. In previous years, the province’s oil exports exceeded 600,000 barrels per month (equivalent to 13 shipments), managed under the supervision of the Ministry of Oil aligned with the internationally recognized government. However, instead of being deposited into Yemen’s Central Bank in Aden, the revenues—amounting to $48 million per month—were redirected to a current account at the National Commercial Bank in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Despite the population’s suffering from dwindling oil and economic resources, the internationally recognized government has neglected these assets, granting exploration rights to weak and often fictitious companies. Records indicate that most of these entities are wholly or partially linked to the UAE, forming part of Abu Dhabi’s broader scheme to plunder and exploit Yemen’s wealth.
The Here Aden Strategic Studies Center has warned of escalating risks associated with the intensified focus on Yemen’s oil and gas sector since early 2025. These efforts, it noted, are aimed at reshaping control over resource-rich areas and renegotiating investment contracts in the energy sector. According to the center, the objectives include seizing oil fields in Shabwa and Hadramout, taking control of Al-Dhaba port to hand it over to UAE-linked companies, securing Belhaf port in Shabwa, and reviving the liquefied natural gas project. Additionally, the Arab Coalition is exerting pressure to resume the supply and export of gas through pipelines connecting Marib and Shabwa.
