Newly-appointed US Ambassador to Yemen, Steven Fagin has arrived in the Yemeni province of Hadhramaut on Monday.
He met with local officials in Hadhramaut province and discussed efforts to address the challenges facing Yemen’s largest province, according to media sources.
The US ambassador’s presence in Hadhramaut came at a time when the province has been witnessing a wave of angry protests against the increased power outages amid rising of extreme heat in the desert province.
Recently, the US has intensified its movements in the oil-rich provinces of Hadhramaut, Shabwah and Mahrah, all in occupied eastern Yemen.
This is the first visit for the ambassador since his appointment, weeks after Biden’s decision to extend the presence of US troops in Yemen under the pretext of fighting al-Qaeda.
The US media underlined the fighting against al-Qaeda as a pretext and propaganda to promotes its direct military presence in Yemen. It also raised the issue of al-Qaeda in conjunction with the US search for oil and gas sources as the fuel crisis has escalated as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Al-Qaeda is generally highlighted and used as an excuse in all US visits, meetings and movements in Hadhramaut, but according to experts, the US is mostly just seeking alternative sources of gas and oil in order to make up for the expected shortages caused by their own sanctions against Russia.
Yemen has one of the largest strategic economic projects in the region, the Natural Gas and Liquefied Gas Project, which began production in Ma’rib province in 2005 and exported it through the Belhaf facility in Shabwah province in 2009.
Its production capacity is estimated at 6.7 million metric tons per year, and the scientifically proven gas reserves in Ma’rib province are estimated at 9.15 trillion cubic feet.
