Yemen’s Houthis shell Aden refinery for second time: official

Houthi forces in Yemen shelled the refinery in the southern city of Aden on Monday for the second time in three days, an official at the facility said, hitting an empty fuel tank with a rocket.

“The refinery suffered today a new rocket which targeted an empty storage tank at the refinery port,” Nasser Shayef, a media official at the Aden refinery, told Reuters by telephone.

“In the refinery’s tanks there’s a large amount of petrol and diesel which the shelling did not reach ... we fear a catastrophe if there’s new shelling,” he added.

Another official said the rocket landed in an open area next to the Aden Oil Company, also within the premises of the refinery at Buraiqah, on the northwestern suburbs of the city.

Refinery officials said firefighters on Monday brought under control a blaze ignited by a Houthi missile attack on Saturday, although an oil tank was still smoldering.

That incident killed the facility’s director of operations and destroyed two storage tanks and a pipeline connecting the refinery to the city’s oil port, the last one that remains in the hands of local fighters fighting the Houthis.

Industry sources said in April the 150,000 barrels-per-day refinery had shut its operations and declared force majeure on its imports and exports due to the war.

The two sides have been locked in deadly street battles across Yemen’s south for three months, as Arab states bomb the Houthis from the air and impose a near-blockade on the country which has cut off trade in food and fuel.