Saudi Aramco shuts Ras Tanura refinery after drone strike

Riyadh: Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant Aramco shut its Ras Tanura refinery following a drone strike, an industry source said on Monday, after Tehran launched strikes across the region in response to the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.

The Ras Tanura complex, on the kingdom’s Gulf coast, houses one of the Middle East’s largest refineries with a capacity of 550,000 barrels per day (bpd) and serves as a critical export terminal for Saudi crude.

It was shut as a precautionary measure and the situation is under control, the source said. Aramco did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

The drone strike added to a wave of attacks on the Gulf, including on Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha, Manama and Oman’s commercial part of Duqm. The strikes have paralysed major shipping hubs in the United Arab Emirates and Oman and sent Brent crude futures surging roughly 10% on Monday.

Saudi Arabia’s heavily fortified energy facilities have been targeted previously, most notably in September 2019 when unprecedented drone and missile attacks on the Abqaiq and Khurais plants temporarily knocked out more than half of the kingdom’s crude production and roiled global markets.

“Some operational units at the refinery were shut down as a precautionary measure, without any impact on the supply of petroleum products to local markets,” an official source at the ministry said in a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency.

Earlier, a source familiar with the incident told AFP the attack caused a fire at the Ras Tanura refinery, but the blaze had already been extinguished.

A Saudi defence ministry spokesman said two drones had targeted the refinery and been intercepted, according to a statement posted by the Saudi Press Agency on X.

The complex also serves as one of the world’s biggest oil ports.

Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft, said the incident marked a major uptick in tensions in the Gulf following a spate of attacks by Iran across the region.

“The attack on Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery marks a significant escalation, with Gulf energy infrastructure now squarely in Iran’s sights,” said Soltvedt in a note on the conflict.

“The attack is also likely to move Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Gulf states closer to joining US and Israeli military operations against Iran.”

Saudi Arabia lambasted Iran over the weekend after Iran targeted Riyadh and its eastern region with strikes, warning it reserved the right to defend itself including by retaliating.

Saudi oil infrastructure has been targeted in the past by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

In March 2022, the Houthis launched a drone attack targeting the YASREF refinery in Yanbu Industrial City on the Red Sea.

And in 2019, Houthi-claimed aerial assaults on two Aramco facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia temporarily knocked out half of the kingdom’s crude production.