Saboteurs blew up part of Yemen 's main Marib-Ras Isa oil pipeline in the early hours of Tuesday, the third such attack in a week, the country's defense ministry said.

"Subversive elements blew up the pipeline at kilometer 98 in the al- Habab area...in the Marib province," the ministry said in a statement posted on its website. It didn't say whether the flow of crude oil has been affected.

"The attack on the pipeline is the third in [a] week," it said.

The pipeline carries about 120,000 barrels of oil a day from the Marib fields to Ras Isa export terminal on the Red Sea . It has been the target of numerous attacks in the past two years, leading to the cessation of oil extraction for almost a year in 2011 and resulting in losses of up to $15 million a day in export earnings for the impoverished country.

The Yemeni government said earlier this week that last year's series of explosions led to losses of $3.1 billion.

Yemen , which once produced about 270,000 barrels of oil a day, has seen its oil and gas pipelines repeatedly sabotaged since anti-government protests broke out in January 2011.

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