President Abdrabu Mansour Hadi met on Thursday with Total's regional director for oil exploration and production Arno Breyak and discussed ways to expand the partnership between Yemen and the French group, Saba reported.

Hadi urged the Oil and Minerals Ministry to cooperate with Total to develop its investments and increase its oil and gas production in the country, according to Saba.

"The Yemeni government and Total need to expand their cooperation, especially on exchanging information about maintenance of pipelines," he was quoted as saying.

"Total is the leading partner of Yemen and it should expand its investments to help the country boost the national economy after the 2011 unrest," he continued.

Separately, Breyak met with Prime Minister, Muhammad Basindwa, and Oil Minister, Hisham Sharaf. At the meetings, Total reviewed plans to develop its operations and to increase oil and gas production in the country, Saba said.

Basindwa renewed the call to reconsider the Yemen LNG prices under the contracts Yemen LNG had signed with foreign companies, including KOGAS.

Breyak also hailed the efforts of the Yemeni forces, authorities and tribal communities which helped Yemen LNG to complete the repairs of the main natural gas pipeline.

The pipeline was bombed and production at the Balhaf terminal was shut down twice. Breyak said Yemen LNG will compensate all LNG shipments, which had to be cancelled due to the attacks on the pipeline.

Total operates the block 10 in east Shabwa province and has a 39.62% share in the Balhaf LNG project.