World’s largest oil processing facility attacked by drones in Saudi Arabia
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched drone attacks on the world’s largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and a major oil field Saturday, sparking huge fires and halting about half of the supplies from the world’s largest exporter of oil.
The attacks resulted in “the temporary suspension of production operations” at the Abqaiq oil processing facility and the Khurais oil field, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said in a statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. The fires “were controlled,” the statement said, and no workers were injured.
The fires led to the interruption of a quantity of crude oil supplies estimated at 5.7 million barrels, according to the statement, which said part of that would be offset with stockpiles. The statement said Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant, would provide updated information in the next 48 hours.
The attacks follow weeks of similar drone assaults on the kingdom’s oil infrastructure, but none of the earlier strikes appeared to have caused the same amount of damage. The attacks likely will further increase tensions across the Persian Gulf amid an escalating crisis between the U.S. and Iran over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers.
The Iranian-backed Houthis — who hold Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and other territory in the Arab world’s poorest country — claimed responsibility for the attacks in the war against a Saudi-led coalition that has fought since 2015 to reinstate the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
But the U.S. blamed Iran, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeting, “There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.”
“Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” Mr. Pompeo added.
In a short address aired by the Houthi’s Al-Masirah satellite news channel, military spokesman Yahia Sarie said the rebels launched 10 drones after receiving “intelligence” support from those inside the kingdom. He warned that attacks by the rebels would only get worse if the war continues.
“The only option for the Saudi government is to stop attacking us,” Mr. Sarie said.
Houthi rebels have been using drones in combat since the start of the Saudiled war. The first appeared to be off-the-shelf, hobby-kitstyle drones. Later, versions nearly identical to Iranian models turned up. Iran denies supplying the Houthis with weapons, although the U.N., the West and Gulf Arab nations say Tehran does.
U.N. investigators said the Houthis’ new UAV-X drone likely has a range of up to 930 miles. That puts the far reaches of both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in range.
President Donald Trump called Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to offer his support for the kingdom’s defense, the White House said. The crown prince assured Mr. Trump that Saudi Arabia is “willing and able to confront and deal with this terrorist aggression,” according to a Saudi Embassy news release.