Half of Saudi Arabia's oil production power is feared to have been wiped out after Iran-backed militants turned two of the world's most valuable refineries into infernos with a devastating drone strike.
Iran is fighting a proxy war on many fronts including Saudi Arabia and Israel, by supplying weapons and funding to Islamic terror groups in Yemen, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. These one-off type of attacks can be, as you can see here, devastatingly effective. In this recent drone strike attack on Saudi Arabia, it wiped out half of the kingdom's production power to produce oil.
So it's a good thing that the United States, due largely to the shale boom in the
Permian Basin of West Texas, has just this month surpassed Saudi Arabia at now over 11 million barrels per day. The United States isn't expected to cede its crown any time soon. The EIA expects US oil production to stay ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia through 2019.
Attacks took place at 4.00 am at world's largest oil processing plant Abqaiq
FROM DAILY MAIL UK: A eye-watering 5 million barrels per day of crude production has reportedly been destroyed - more than 50 per cent of the kingdom's 9.65 million daily output which is relied upon around the globe. Fires raged at the plant in Abqaiq, Bugayg, and the arab country's second largest oilfield in Khurais this morning after mounting tensions between Riyadh and Tehran finally came to a head prompting Houthi rebels in Yemen to launch the flurry of rockets.
A military spokesperson for these Yemeni rebels, who are locked into a bloody civil war, claimed responsibility for the strike on Saudi Arabia's
state-owned oil giant Aramco.
The Houthi fighters have previously launched attacks over the border, hitting Shaybah oilfield with drones last month and two oil pumping stations in May. Both attacks caused fires but did not disrupt production.
The Saudi government has not yet officially confirmed the scale of the damage, by two well-connected sources told Reuters that 5 million barrels worth of daily production had been impacted. Yahia Sarie announced that the Houthi's were taking responsibility for the attacks on Saturday in a televised address carried by the Houthi's Al-Masirah satellite news channel.
He said the Houthis sent 10 drones to attack an oil processing facility in Buqyaq and the Khurais oil field, warning that attacks by the rebels against the kingdom would only get worse if the war in Yemen continues.
Sarie said: 'The only option for the Saudi government is to stop attacking us.'
Iran denies supplying the Houthis with weapons, although the UN, the West and Gulf Arab nations say Tehran does. Drone models
nearly identical to those used by Iran have been used in the conflict in Yemen. The attacks highlight how the increasingly advanced weaponry of the Iran-linked Houthi rebels - from ballistic missiles to
unmanned drones - poses a serious threat to oil installations in Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter.
The international energy watchdog said that the global oil markets are for now 'well supplied with ample commercial stocks.' The International Energy Agency said in a statement: 'We are in contact with Saudi authorities as well as major producer and consumer nations.'
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Saudi Arabia: major fire at world's largest oil refinery after drone attack
Drones attacked the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and a major oilfield operated by Saudi Aramco early on Saturday, the kingdom's interior ministry said, sparking a huge fire at a processor crucial to global energy supplies. It was not clear if there were any injuries in the attacks, nor what effect it would have on oil production in the kingdom Major Saudi Arabia oil facilities hit by drone strikes
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