Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for a drone attack on the world’s largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia which is vital to global energy supplies.
The attacks on the processor and a major oilfield, operated by Saudi Aramco, on early Saturday sparked a huge fire, the kingdom’s interior ministry said.
According to Reuters, threes sources claimed the assault had disrupted output and exports, with one source claiming 5 million barrels per day of crude production had been impacted – nearly half the kingdom’s output.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia is shutting down about half of its oil output because of the incident. Authorities have not confirmed whether oil production or exports were affected.
A military spokesman for Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes, saying 10 drones had been deployed in the attack.
The Saudi-led coalition launched airstrikes on Yemen’s northern Saada province, a Houthi stronghold, on Saturday, a Reuters witness said. Houthi-run al Masirah TV said the warplanes targeted a military camp.
Yahia Sarie made the announcement on Saturday in a televised address carried by the Houthi movement’s al-Masirah satellite news channel.
Sarie said the rebels had attacked the Abqaiq oil processing facility and the Khurais oil field. He said attacks against the kingdom would get worse if the war in Yemen continued.
“The only option for the Saudi government is to stop attacking us,” he said. A Saudi-led coalition has been at war with the rebels since March 2015.
It was unclear whether there were any injuries in the attacks, or whether they would affect the country’s oil production. They are, however, likely to heighten tensions in the region, where Saudi Arabia and Iran are effectively fighting a proxy war in Yemen, and Tehran is at loggerheads with Washington over the latter’s withdrawal from its nuclear deal with world powers.
Online videos apparently shot in Abqaiq included the sound of gunfire in the background. Smoke rose over the skyline and flames could be seen in the distance at the oil processing facility.
The fires began after the sites were targeted by drones, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. It said an investigation was under way.
Saudi Aramco describes its Abqaiq facility as the largest crude oil stabilisation plant in the world. It is thought to be able to process up to 7m barrels of crude a day.
Bob McNally, who runs Rapidan Energy Group and served in the US National Security Council during the second Gulf War in 2003, told Reuters: “A successful attack on Abqaiq would be akin to a massive heart attack for the oil market and global economy.”
Militants have targeted the plant in the past. Suicide bombers claiming to be from al-Qaida tried but failed to attack it in February 2006.
The Khurais oil field is thought to produce more than 1m barrels of crude a day. It has estimated reserves of more than 20bn barrels, according to Aramco.
There was no immediate impact on global oil prices, because markets are closed for the weekend. Benchmark Brent crude had been trading at just above $60 a barrel.
Abqaiq is 205 miles (330km) north-east of Riyadh.
A Saudi-led coalition has been at war with the Houthi movement in Yemen since March 2015. The Iranian-backed rebels hold the capital, Sana’a, and other territory in the Arab world’s poorest country.
The war has triggered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The violence has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine and more than 90,000 people have been killed since 2015, according to the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which tracks the conflict.
Quick GuideThe Yemen conflict explained
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The roots of the Yemen civil war lie in the Arab spring. In 2011 pro-democracy protesters took to the streets in a bid to force the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, to end his 33-year rule. He responded with economic concessions but refused to resign.
After protesters died at the hands of the military in the capital Sana’a, there followed an internationally brokered deal to transfer power to the vice-president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
However, Hadi’s government was considered weak and corrupt, and his attempts at constitutional and budget reforms were rejected by Houthi rebels from the north. They captured the capital, forcing Hadi to flee eventually to Riyadh.
In March 2015 a Saudi-led coalition intervened on behalf of Hadi’s internationally recognised government against the Houthi rebels. The war is widely regarded as having turned a poor country into a humanitarian catastrophe.
Over the years the situation on the ground has become ever-more complex. In September 2019, the Saudi Arabian oil-fields of Abqaiq and Khurais were attacked by air. The Houthis claimed the credit, but Saudi Arabia and the US accused Iran of being behind the attacks. The conflict has been seen as part of the regional power struggle between Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and Shia-ruled Iran.
Local militants from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and from a group affiliated to Islamic State have both used the opportunity to seize territory in Yemen. In August 2019 the Southern Transitional Council, which has up until that point been seen as a UAE-backed ally, attempted to separate itself from Yemen, sparking conflict with the Saudi-led forces. The UAE has now claimed to have withdrawn from the conflict.
Saudi Arabia had expected that its overwhelming air power, backed by the regional coalition and with intelligence and logistical support from the UK, US and France, could defeat the Houthi insurgency in a matter of months. Instead it has triggered the world's worst humanitarian disaster, with 80% of the population - more than 24 million people - requiring assistance or protection and more than 90,000 dead. The charity Save the Children estimated that 85,000 children with severe acute malnutrition might have died between 2015 and 2018.
Medical facilities have been devastated by years of war. The country has had to deal with not just the coronavirus pandemic, but also the largest cholera outbreak ever recorded, with over 2 million cases on record. The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs has warned that more than 16 million people in Yemen would go hungry this year, with already half a million living in famine-like conditions.
Houthi rebels have been using drones in combat since the start of the Saudi-led war. The first appeared to be off-the-shelf, hobby-kit-style drones, but later versions have been nearly identical to Iranian models. Tehran denies supplying the rebels with weapons, but the west and Gulf Arab nations say it does.
The rebels have flown drones into the radar arrays of Saudi Arabia’s Patriot missile batteries, according to Conflict Armament Research, disabling them and allowing them to fire ballistic missiles into the kingdom unchallenged.
They launched drone attacks targeting Saudi Arabia’s crucial east-west pipeline in May as tensions heightened between Iran and the US.
Houthi drones also struck the Shaybah oil field in August. The field produces 1m barrels of crude a day near the Saudi border with the United Arab Emirates.
UN investigators have suggested that the rebels’ new UAV-X drone may have a range of up to 930 miles (1,500km), meaning they would be able to reach Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
