Yemen’s Houthi rebels took credit for targeting Saudi Arabian state-owned oil facilities in a drone attack that reportedly forced half of the country’s oil supply, or 5% of the global oil supply, to shut down Saturday.
Ten drones struck Saudi Aramco oil facilities — one of which is the world’s largest oil plant — in Abqaiq and Khurais, according to people familiar with the attack, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Fires the strikes caused disrupted the production of 5 million barrels of oil per day, which the region hopes to restore by Monday, sources said. Its regular production level is 9.8 million barrels a day, CNN Business reported.
Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil producer and contributes about 10% of the world’s total supply.
“We promise the Saudi regime that our future operations will expand and be more painful as long as its aggression and siege continue,” a Houthi spokesman said Saturday, according to WSJ.
President Donald Trump reportedly made a phone call Saturday to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and said the U.S. is ready to “cooperate with the kingdom in supporting its security and stability.”
Saudi Arabia “is willing and able to confront and deal with this terrorist aggression,” the prince told Trump, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
Aramco “hopes to have that capacity restored within days,” a source told CNN Business.
WATCH:
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The disruption could cause oil prices to increase if the country fails to restore production, WSJ reported.
“The attack has been quite surprising for the mere amount of damage it caused,” Middlebury Institute of International Studies arms researcher Fabian Hinz told WSJ. “We have seen quite a few drone and missile attacks against Saudi infrastructure, but in most cases the actual damage caused has been quite minimal.”
The International Energy Agency (IEA) tweeted Saturday, “The IEA is monitoring the situation in Saudi Arabia closely. We are in contact with Saudi authorities as well as major producer and consumer nations. For now, markets are well supplied with ample commercial stocks.”
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