An official source in the Saudi Ministry of Energy announced that the Kingdom’s vital energy infrastructure has been subjected to repeated attacks recently. These attacks targeted oil and gas production facilities, in addition to transportation and refining facilities, petrochemical facilities and the electricity sector in Riyadh, the Eastern Province and Yanbu Industrial City. These attacks resulted in the martyrdom of an industrial security personnel at the Saudi Energy Company and the injury of seven other company employees. It also led to the disruption of some operational operations in vital facilities in the energy system.
The source stated that one of the pumping stations on the vital East-West pipeline was among the targets, causing the loss of about 700,000 barrels per day of pumping volume through this line, which is considered the main artery for supplying global markets at the present time.
He also explained that the Manifa production plant was subjected to an attack that reduced its production capacity by about 300,000 barrels per day. He referred to the previous attack on the Khurais plant, which led to a similar decline in its production, i.e. 300,000 barrels per day. Thus, the Kingdom’s production capacity decreased by 600 thousand barrels per day.
The source added that the attacks targeted basic refining facilities, including the “SATORP” facilities in Jubail, the Ras Tanura refinery, the “SAMREF” refinery in Yanbu, and the Riyadh refinery. This has directly affected exports of refined products to global markets.
He also drew attention to the fact that the processing facilities in Ju’aymah witnessed fires, which affected exports of petroleum gas liquids (LPG) and natural gas liquids.
The source concluded by emphasizing that the continuation of these attacks will lead to a shortage in supplies and a slowdown in the pace of their recovery, which will affect the security of supplies for the beneficiary countries and contribute to increasing volatility in the oil markets. This situation also has negative repercussions on the global economy, especially with the depletion of a large portion of global operational and “emergency” reserve stocks, which limits the availability of reserves and reduces the ability to respond to this shortage of supplies.
