Yemen LNG Company was incorporated in 1995 to develop the LNG plant. In 1997, the development was halted because of the Asian economic crisis. The project was launched only in August 2005 after signing three LNG supply contracts. On 29 October 2007, Yemen LNG and Yemen state-owned oil and Gas Company Safer Exploration and Production agreed a 20-year contract, according to which Safer grants the LNG plant with supply up to 12.5 billion cubic meter (bcm) of gas per year from the Block 18 of the Marib-Jawf field. The production started on 15 October 2009.

Technical description
The project comprises upstream gas processing facilities including a transfer line linking processing units, a spur-line for transporting gas to the Ma’bar area and a 320 kilometres (200 mi), 38 inches (970 mm) pipeline connecting the gas processing facilities to the LNG plant. The plant consists of two LNG trains with the total capacity of 6.7 million tonnes per year. The contractors for the construction of LNG trains were Technip, JGC, and Kellogg Brown & Root. The project is one of the country’s first big project financing with total cost of US$4 billion, involving US$3 billion in debt being raised from a syndicate of banks. Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, ING Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Société Générale, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation are the initial mandated lead arrangers and bookrunners on a loan.

Project Company
The consortium is led by Total S.A. (39.62%) in cooperation with Hunt Oil Company (17.22%), Yemen Gas Company (YGC; 16.73%), SK Corp. (9.55%), Kogas (6.00%), Hyundai Corporation (5.88%), and the General Authority for Social Security & Pensions of Yemen (5.00%). On 30 June 2010, Russia’s government announced that Russian gas company Gazprom may buy Hunt Oil’s stake, possibly together with Saudi Arabia.