Latest: The Houthis have claimed a wider set of strikes than the Shaybah and Dammam attacks reported earlier in this story. Military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group carried out four operations with ballistic missiles and drones in the previous 48 hours, naming the Saudi Defense Ministry headquarters in Riyadh, King Fahd International Airport at Dammam, an Aramco facility at Yanbu, where he said a fire was started, and Abha International Airport. Saudi authorities have confirmed the Dammam airport attack. No Saudi confirmation of strikes on the Riyadh ministry building, Yanbu or Abha had been reported as of this update, and those claims rest on the Houthis’ own account, relayed by Yonhap and by TASS.
Oil climbed sharply on Thursday after attacks on Saudi energy sites added a production risk on top of the shipping risk that has driven the market for weeks. Brent rose 3.23 percent to 112.34 dollars a barrel in the latest market tables, up 6.06 percent on the week, and WTI rose 2.71 percent to 99.78 dollars. Reuters market reporting early Thursday had Brent up 2.82 dollars, or 2.59 percent, at 111.64 dollars and WTI up 2.24 dollars at 99.39 dollars.
The trigger was Saudi Arabia’s Shaybah field. A Houthi drone aimed at a processing plant at Shaybah on Wednesday was intercepted and its debris struck a contractor vehicle, killing two people and injuring two, according to reporting of the Saudi Energy Ministry’s account. The ministry said operations were unaffected. Shaybah, in the Empty Quarter, produces about one million barrels a day. Hours later an attack on King Fahd International Airport at Dammam killed one person and injured eight, according to the civil aviation authority. The United States ordered non-emergency government employees and family members to leave Saudi Arabia, and officials told Reuters families would also be withdrawn from several other regional missions.
The attacks extend a pattern that now reaches the kingdom’s core infrastructure. Crude flows on the East-West pipeline, the main route around Hormuz to the Red Sea, were halted on October 5 after a Houthi strike on a pumping station east of Riyadh, and Aramco’s chief executive said on Thursday that Saudi Arabia is in talks with foreign governments to give the company access to strategic storage abroad, a step covered in a developing file on this site today.
Fundamentals added support rather than offsetting the risk. The Energy Information Administration reported on Wednesday that US commercial crude stocks fell 3.06 million barrels in the week to October 16 to 412.5 million barrels, a larger draw than the 820,000 barrels expected in a Reuters poll, with stocks now 3 percent below the five year average. Kpler counted at least 18 attacks on vessels in two weeks, and LSEG analysts said Iran is targeting tankers beyond Hormuz into the Gulf of Oman, putting the ship to ship transfers that have sustained flows at risk.