Saudi Aramco’s Jizan oil facilities hit in new strikes

Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities in the Saudi Arabian city of Jizan have been attacked only a month after a separate strike temporarily knocked out some production at its refinery.

The company’s oil infrastructure was hit on Monday and the damage was being assessed, said two people with knowledge of the matter.

Jizan is the kingdom’s closest industrial city to the Yemeni border and has been attacked by the Houthis on several occasions in the past.

The Iranian-backed rebels have not claimed any new attack on Saudi Arabia. The group has reignited its conflict with Saudi Arabia since declaring a blockade on the kingdom’s Red Sea ports in July and has launched several drone and missile attacks targeting its oil infrastructure in the weeks since.

Jizan is home to a 400,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery, which is among the country’s largest, along with associated plants and energy infrastructure.

Saudi Aramco’s chief executive Amin Nasser said last month that the attacks had caused some interruptions to the company’s oil production but that this had no material operational or financial impact.

The latest attack was similar in scale to last month’s strike, said one of the people.

Saudi Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for information.

Oil prices climbed on Monday, with Brent crude up 1.2% at $97.40 a barrel.

More refined oil products than usual were shipped from Jizan in the first few months of the US-Iran war as the conflict crimped Saudi exports from the Gulf, but volumes dropped dramatically after the Houthis restarted their attacks. No oil products were shipped from Jizan in August, according to data compiled by Kpler.

Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015 to lead an Arab coalition against the Houthis after the rebels seized Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, and ousted the internationally recognised government.

However, until July, there had been no significant fighting after the warring parties agreed to a ceasefire in April 2022.

The Houthis — whom Riyadh believes are being encouraged by Tehran — have threatened to close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which has become a vital route for Saudi oil exports since Iran throttled shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Over the weekend, the Houthis — who control much of Yemen’s populous north — launched a ground offensive along the Arab state’s Red Sea coast in an apparent attempt to advance towards Bab al-Mandeb.

Yemenis reported fighting around the historic port of Mocha and the city of Taiz, causing thousands of people to flee their homes.

The Houthi offensive has triggered the fiercest fighting in Yemen in six years, as the rebels battle Saudi-backed forces aligned to the Yemeni government who have launched their own counteroffensives.

Before the 2022 ceasefire, the Houthis fired regular barrages of missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia. Most were intercepted, but those that got through the kingdom’s air defences caused damage to energy facilities and other civilian infrastructure.

“We are back to full-time war in Yemen,” said Farea al-Muslimi, a research fellow at Chatham House. “It’s on land, in the air and on the sea . . . The Saudis are doing everything possible to avoid a direct confrontation, but they are preparing for it.”