Houthi strike tore large hole in oil tank: Saudi Aramco
SAUDI Aramco said on Tuesday that a strike by Yemeni rebels on its plant in eddah tore a hole in an oil tank, triggering an explosion and fire in another assault on the kingdom’s energy infrastructure.
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they struck the facility in the Red Sea city on Monday with a Quds-2 missile, as they step up attacks in retaliation for a five-year military campaign led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
The latest strike, which underscores the vulnerability of Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure, comes just over a year after aerial assaults on two other Aramco facilities temporarily knocked out half of the kingdom’s crude production.
Aramco granted foreign media rare access to the eddah distributionfacility where damage to the storage tank was visible a day after the attack, with the top rim fire-blackened and a railings above buckled from the heat.
The roof of the tank suffered “major damage”, with a hole measuring two square metres, said Abdullah al-Ghamdi, manager of the North eddah Bulk Plant.
“It was a big fire it was a big explosion,” Ghamdi said, adding the blaze was extinguished within 40 minutes and no casualties were reported.
The manager said distribution from the plant, which provides refined products including jet fuel to the country’s west, was restored within three hours even though the damaged tank -- one of 13 -- remained out of action.
Mangled and charred metal debris was put on display near the damaged tank, with company officials saying it would be forensically examined.
Aramco was still assessing the cost of the damage and it was unclear how long the repairs would take, Ghamdi said.
Saudi Arabia is stuck in a military quagmire in Yemen, which has been locked in conflict since Huthi rebels took control of the capital Sanaa in 2014 and went on to seize much of the north.