Alwaght- Tunisian protesters have forced the closure of another oil pumping station as unrests spreads in southern parts of the country.
Protesters peacefully shut a pumping station at Faouar in southern Kebili province, where French oil company Perenco operates, according to TAP state news agency and Mosaique FM and Shems FM radio stations.
It is the second pumping station closed by protests in the southern provinces, where for weeks groups of unemployed men have been holding sit-ins and threatening to blockade oil and gas production to demand more for their marginalized regions.
Several days ago Tunisia deploying the army to protect phosphate, gas and oil production facilities after protests aimed at disrupting output broke out in the south of the country.
Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi, for the first time, ordered troops to be used in protecting industrial installations vital to Tunisia's economy. Protests, sit-ins and strikes in recent years have cost the North African state billions of dollars.
On Saturday troops fired in the air to disperse a crowd and allow an engineer to close the Vana pumping station in Tatatouine, where Italy's ENI and Austria's OMV operate.
Tunisia is only a small oil producer with an output of about 44,000 barrels per day nationwide. But weeks of protests are putting pressure on Prime Minister Youssef Chahed at a time his government seeks to undertake key economic and austerity reforms demanded by international lenders.
Protests that have also hit the phosphate sector in past years cost the country more than $2 billion, according to officials. But production has returned to the highest levels since 2010 after officials negotiated deals with protesters.
Six years after a popular Islamic uprising ousted dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia is praised as a model of transition. But it still struggles to address demands for jobs and opportunities in marginalized regions.
