Missile Attack At Saudi Oil Facilities, Crude Oil Above $70 – Free PDF Download

What has happened?

• Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired drones and missiles at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry on Sunday,
• Attacking a Saudi Aramco facility at Ras Tanura in an assault the kingdom said was aimed at the security and stability of the global energy supply.
• Announcing the attacks, the Houthis also said they attacked military targets in the Saudi cities of Dammam, Asir and Jazan.

Ras Tanura

• The Saudi energy ministry said an oil storage yard at Ras Tanura, the site of an oil refinery and the world’s biggest offshore oil loading facility, was attacked with a drone but there were no casualties or property loss.
• The province is home to most of Saudi Aramco’s oil production and export facilities.
• It added that shrapnel from a ballistic missile fell near Aramco’s residential compound in Dhahran.
• Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said the group fired 14 drones and eight ballistic missiles across the border with the kingdom in a “wide operation in the heart of Saudi Arabia”.
• The United States mission in Saudi Arabia advised US citizens to take precautions after reports of possible attacks and explosion in the area of Dhahran, Dammam and Khobar in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

Response from saudi

• The spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen said that Saudi Arabia will take all necessary measures to protect itself, and to ensure the stability of energy supplies and maritime traffic.
• The attacks on a petroleum tank farm at Ras Tanura port and on Aramco facilities in Dhahran were “cowardly terrorist attacks”, a defence ministry spokesman said in a statement on state news agency SPA.

Impact on oil

• Oil surged above $70 a barrel in early Asian trading after Saudi Arabia said an energy facility was attacked,
• With prices extending gains after OPEC+ last week said it would keep production steady.
• Oil climbed last week after Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ made a surprise pledge to maintain output steady in April, Accelerating a rally this year that has seen prices surge more than 35%.
• The move prompted a raft of investment banks to raise their price forecasts, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimating global benchmark Brent will top $80 a barrel in the third quarter.

• The attacks are the most serious against the Saudi oil installations since a key processing facility and two oil fields came under fire in September 2019,
• Cutting oil production for several days and exposing the vulnerability of the Saudi petroleum industry.
• That assault was claimed by the Houthi rebels, although Riyadh pointed the finger at Iran.

Fight in Yemen

• Under Mr Biden’s two predecessors, the US backed a coalition led by Saudi Arabia against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
• The conflict has left millions of Yemenis on the brink of starvation.
• Fighting began in 2014 between a weak Yemeni government and the Houthi rebel
• It escalated a year later, when Saudi Arabia and eight other Arab states – backed by the US, the UK and France – began air strikes against the Houthis.

Who are Houthis?

• The Houthis are Zaydi Shiites, or Zaydiyyah.
• Shiite Muslims are the minority community in the Islamic world and Zaydis are a minority of Shiites, Significantly different in doctrine and beliefs from the Shiites who dominate in Iran, Iraq, etc.
• The Zaidis, once a powerful force in north Yemen, were sidelined during the 1962-70 civil war and then further alienated in the 1980s,
• As Salafist Sunni ideals gained prominence across the border in Saudi Arabia, which exported the ideology to Yemen.
• In response, Zaidi clerics began to militarise their followers against Riyadh and its allies.
• The Houthi movement was founded in the 1990s by Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi.
• In 2014 they allied with their former enemy Ali Abdullah Saleh, seizing the capital, Sana’a, and overthrowing the new president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in 2015.

Q) Which of the following movements became very promiment in Saudi Arabia?

1. The Wahhabi movement
2. The Nation of Islam
3. The Muslim Brotherhood
4. The Sudanese Mahdi

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