RIYADH: The Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen warned civilians on Tuesday to leave a fuel facility in the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, ahead of a planned precision operation.
Coalition spokesman Turki Al-Maliki urged civilians to evacuate the Yemen Petroleum Company’s Al-Sabahah central fuel station for their safety. The coalition also released a map identifying the site.
The evacuation warning followed a post by Al-Maliki on X saying the coalition would alert civilians before carrying out the operation.
The Yemen Petroleum Company, owned by the Ministry of Oil and Minerals, managed fuel supplies across the country before the Houthis took control of Sanaa in 2014. The takeover split the company into separate operations under the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
The Sanaa-based Yemen Petroleum Company now oversees petroleum storage and distribution in Houthi-controlled areas.
A fuel assessment by the UN-led Logistics Cluster describes a distribution system in which imported fuel is handed over to the company, with storage facilities in Sanaa and the Red Sea province of Hodeidah supplying stations across northern Yemen.
The assessment identifies Sanaa as the largest of three northern distribution centers, handling about 6 million liters, or 1.6 million gallons, a day. This accounts for roughly 71 percent of the combined daily distribution recorded for Sanaa, Hodeidah and Ras Issa.
The figures, however, cover Sanaa’s wider distribution network, not the Al-Sabahah facility alone.
More recent reporting suggests that the Al-Sabahah area has become increasingly important as other parts of the Houthis’ fuel infrastructure have come under pressure.
In July, a report by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, an independent think tank, cited the Sanaa-based petroleum company as saying that previous US and Israeli strikes had destroyed oil storage tanks, forcing it to use alternative facilities less suited to filtering and storing fuel.
The report also said the Houthis had increasingly relied on cross-border networks to import lower-quality Iranian fuel and had stockpiled supplies at facilities in the Al-Sabahah area, west of Sanaa.
Restrictions on shipments to Houthi-controlled ports and disruptions to regional maritime traffic had further strained supplies, according to the report.
The problems became apparent in June, when contaminated fuel circulated widely in Houthi-controlled areas, damaging vehicles, irrigation pumps, factories, workshops and power stations and prompting public anger.
The Sanaa-based petroleum company attributed the contamination partly to the loss of storage infrastructure. It said replacement tanks did not allow impurities to settle or fuel to be properly purified.
The evacuation announcement by the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy came after a series of attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis on Saudi airports and oil facilities since last week, killing civilians and damaging civilian infrastructure. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the attacks as violations of international law.
Houthi strikes on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday killed 13 people and wounded more than 300 others. Four people were killed in attacks on Wednesday and Thursday, and another person died on Sunday.