Sana'a, Yemen - Yemen will ship the first cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its giant LNG project in September, the state-run Saba news agency reported on Monday.

The agency said the LNG exporting project in the south-eastern port of Balhaf on the Arabian Sea will start production in mid-September to join other regional LNG exporters Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

Last year, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said the first cargo from the LNG plant would be shipped in May 2009.

The 4.1-billion-dollar LNG project is the largest ever industrial project in Yemen, a small non-OPEC oil producer that pumps around 330,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

The project is run by the Yemen Liquefied Natural Gas Company, which is a joint venture grouping the state-owned Yemen Gas Company, French oil giant Total, US Hunt Oil Company, as well as Kogas and Hyundai from South Korea.

It will have output capacity of 6.7 million tons of LNG a year.(dpa)