According to Saudi state-run media, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a barrage of drone and missile strikes on Saudi Arabia early Sunday, targeting a liquefied natural gas production, water desalination plant, oil facility, and power station.
According to the Saudi-led military coalition fighting in Yemen, the assaults did not result in any injuries, but they did damage civilian vehicles and homes in the region. The volley was the latest in a series of Houthi cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia, as peace talks stall and the bloodshed that has ravaged much of Yemen for the past seven years continues.
Aramco is Saudi’s state-owned oil company
The attacks also came as Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, reported a 124 percent increase in earnings to $110 billion in 2021, fuelled by increasing concerns about global supply constraints, skyrocketing oil prices, and a resurgence in gasoline demand following the epidemic.
After weeks of high volatility in energy markets sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Aramco, better known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, presented its earnings report. Sanctions against Russia, one of the world’s top suppliers of crude and petroleum products, have thrown the energy industry into chaos.
Brent crude, the international oil standard, was hovering at $107 on Sunday, after nearly hitting a high of $140 earlier this month. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have so far rejected Western pressure to raise oil production in order to compensate for the loss of Russian oil as gasoline prices have risen dramatically.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have launched “a wide and large military campaign into the depths of Saudi Arabia,” according to Yehia Sarie, a spokesman for the group.
Aramco’s liquified gas facility at a petrochemicals complex in the Red Sea port of Yanbu was foiled, according to the Saudi-led military alliance.
A power plant in the country’s southwest, a desalination facility in Al-Shaqeeq on the Red Sea coast, an Aramco port in the southern border town of Jizan, and a gas station in the southern city of Khamis Mushait were among the other targets, according to the alliance.
The extent of the damage to Saudi infrastructure and energy installations has yet to be determined. Firetrucks dousing leaping flames with water hoses, as well as crushed cars and craters in the ground purportedly created by drone and ballistic missile strikes, were all photographed by the Saudi Press Agency.
The barrage comes just days after the Gulf Cooperation Council, based in Saudi Arabia, announced that it had invited Yemen’s warring parties to talks in Riyadh aimed at ending the conflict — an invitation that the Houthis spurned out of hand, demanding that talks take place in a “neutral” country.
Since the Houthis attempted to conquer oil-rich Marib, one of the last remaining strongholds of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government in the country’s north, peace talks have stalled.
Meanwhile, the kingdom’s vital oil refineries and export terminals have been repeatedly targeted by cross-border Houthi raids. Strikes on Aramco installations have shaken world energy markets and elevated the potential of Saudi output outages, albeit rarely causing significant damage.