Saudis show media burned oil facility

Trying to find consensus ahead of U.N. meeting

BUQAYQ, Saudi Arabia —The heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry remained wrapped in scaffolding Friday as workers sought to repair the charred innards and shrapnel-blasted arteries caused by drone-and-cruise-missile attacks that raised tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

Saudi officials brought journalists to the kingdom’s crucial Abqaiq oil processing facility, described by the state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco as “the largest crude oil stabilization plant in the world.” It was the first such trip for outsiders to see the damage done to its facilities that have been targeted in a summerlong campaign of attacks.

Saudi Arabia is seeking to build international consensus ahead of the U.N. General Assembly next week after the Sept. 14 attack that it claims was “unquestionably sponsored by Iran.” The U.S. has gone further, alleging Iran carried out the attack as part of a campaign seeking to roil the region as American sanctions on its oil industry prevent it from selling crude oil abroad as Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers collapses.

Iran has denied involvement in the attack that was initially claimed by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, now heading to New York for the U.N. meetings, has warned that any retaliatory strike on Iran by the U.S. or Saudi Arabia will result in “an all-out war.”

President Donald Trump, who withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal more than a year ago, said separately Friday that America “just sanctioned the Iranian national bank.” He did not elaborate.

The U.S. Treasury Department said it took action against the Central Bank of Iran, the National Development Fund of Iran and the Etemad Tejarate Pars Co. The Treasury statement said the NDF was a major source of foreign currency and funding to Iran’s military forces, including the Revolutionary Guard, while Etemad Tejarate Pars concealed financial transfers for military purchases.

In Abqaiq, an oil facility in the Arabian Peninsula’s sprawling Empty Quarter desert, journalists saw what previously only had been glimpsed in satellite photos released earlier by the United States.

Amr Nabil The Associated Press A man looks over the damage in Aramco’s Khurais oil field in Saudi Arabia on Friday after it was hit during a Sept. 14 attack. Saudi officials brought journalists Friday to see the damage done in an attack that the U.S. alleges Iran carried out.