Yemen is expected to meet its obligation for the export of around two million barrels of Masila Blend in mid-May, a trade source familiar with the matter told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday.

There has been increased speculation that the country's crude exports might be halted by the political strife that has spread across the country due to growing opposition to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh's decades-long rule. However, Masila volumes for mid-May loading have already reached storage tanks at the Ash Shihr terminal and are expected to be loaded without problems, the trade source added.

Yemen produces between 4.5-5 million barrels of Masila Blend crude a month, the trader said.

However, reports of workers' strikes at oil fields making up Masila Blend mean that the fate of export volumes scheduled for end of May loading remain uncertain, the trade source added.

The Canadian oil company Nexen Inc.(NXY), which operates the Masila project with a 52% working interest, wasn't immediately available to comment when contacted by Dow Jones Newswires.

Yemen 's other major crude stream, Marib Light, is usually consumed domestically where it's refined into oil products at the Aden refinery.

However, an attack by tribal groups opposed to President Saleh forced the shutdown of the pipeline, which ships 50,000-70,000 barrels a day to the port city of Ras Isa on the Red Sea . The outage is likely to leave a huge gap in Yemeni oil product supply.

Yemen 's High Ministerial Committee for Crude Oil Marketing announced in May that around 3.15 million barrels of Masila crude would be available in June, falling from four million barrels made available for export in May. The Committee failed to quantify the volume of Marib light crude available for June delivery, after saying 2.3 million barrels were available in May.

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