Foreign oil companies with concessions in northern Yemen have been drawn into a border dispute between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
At least six companies received letters from the Saudi government warning them that steps, as yet undefined, will be taken if exploration extends into disputed areas.
A second territorial dispute also appears to be brewing in the region. Iran has ejected United Arab Emirates nationals from the island of Abu Musa in the Persian Gulf, which is jointly administered by Iran and Sharjah, one of the emirates.
The U.A.E. government has reported the situation to the Gulf Cooperation Council, triggering a denial from Iran that anyone has been deported from the island.
Companies that have received letters from the Saudis include ARCO Yemen, Petro-Canada, and a unit of Ste. Nationale Elf Aquitaine that operate large concessions in Northeast Yemen.
In the Northwest part of the country, letters have gone to Yemen Hunt Oil Co., operator of the producing Marib concession; Phillips Petroleum Co., operator of the adjoining Upper Jawf concession; and BP Exploration, which has started preliminary exploration on a block in the Red Sea.
The unresolved status of the border is well known to the companies, which generally have tried to avoid exploration in the most sensitive parts of their concessions.
The border between the two countries from the Red Sea to Oman, largely desert, has never been defined. Until Yemen Hunt found and developed oil in the Marib concession there was little incentive to delineate the boundary.
A number of incidents on the border area have been reported. An aircraft on an aerial survey for ARCO recently was warned not to proceed farther north by Saudi Arabian air traffic controllers. In 1989, Saudi border guards fired warning shots at an exploration party working for Elf in the Sirr Hazar concession.
Discovery of substantial reserves in Yemen has turned the country into one of the exploration hot spots in the Middle East.
Industry sources say the new found interest in Yemen on the international scene may have influenced the timing of the Saudi warnings because the Yemeni government will not want a long public dispute to sour the exploration atmosphere.
Finding a solution may not be easy. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Yemen have been strained since Yemen's pro-Iraqi stance during the Persian Gulf war.
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