An Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander yesterday said that US bases and aircraft carriers in the region were within range of Iranian missiles after the US accused Iran of leading attacks on Saudi Arabian oil plants.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group said it attacked two Saudi Arabian Oil Co plants on Saturday at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry, knocking out more than half of the Kingdom’s output.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of being behind the attacks, ruling out Yemeni involvement and denouncing Tehran for engaging in false diplomacy.
Photo: Planet Labs Inc via AP
Iran denied responsibility for the attacks.
Pompeo wrote on Twitter on Saturday that there was no evidence that the attacks came from Yemen.
“Everybody should know that all American bases and their aircraft carriers in a distance of up to 2,000 kilometres around Iran are within the range of our missiles,” the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Aerospace Force Amirali Hajizadeh said yesterday.
The Tasnim news agency also quoted him saying that “Iran has always been ready for a ‘full-fledged’ war,” without mentioning Saturday’s attacks in Saudi Arabia.
Pompeo tweeted after the White House confirmed that US President Donald Trump offered support for Saudi Arabia’s self-defense in a call on Saturday with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Iran launched an “unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” Pompeo said on Twitter after US Senator Lindsey Graham earlier urged a decisive US response against Iranian targets.
“It is now time for the U.S. to put on the table an attack on Iranian oil refineries if they continue their provocations or increase nuclear enrichment,” Graham wrote on Twitter. “Iran will not stop their misbehavior until the consequences become more real, like attacking their refineries.”
Pompeo called on all nations to “publicly and unequivocally condemn Iran’s attacks.”
Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Abbas Mousavi rejected the US allegations, saying such “blind and fruitless accusations and statements are unfathomable and meaningless.”
“Such accusations and measures are more like the schemes of intelligence and secret services to mar the image of a country and to prepare the ground for future measures,” Mousavi said. “Americans have adopted the ‘maximum pressure’ policy, which is seemingly leaning towards ‘maximum lie’ due to their failures.”
The US “strongly condemns today’s [Saturday’s] attack on critical energy infrastructure,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an e-mailed statement that was also posted on Twitter.
The US government “is monitoring the situation and remains committed to ensuring global oil markets are stable,” Deere wrote.
The oil market was expected to rally by US$5 to US$10 per barrel when it opens today and might spike to as high as US$100 per barrel if Saudi Arabia fails to quickly resume oil supply, traders and analysts said.
Attacks on the two plants knocked out about 5 percent of global supply.
Industry sources have said it might take weeks to bring production fully online.
Crude prices might spike by at least US$15 to US$20 per barrel in a seven-day disruption scenario and go well into triple digits in a 30-day scenario, Rapidan Energy’s Bob McNally said.
“This does not include what are likely to be large (if difficult to model or predict) premia to reflect zeroing out of global spare production capacity amidst ongoing disruption risks, hoarding, and panic sentiment,” McNally said.
Saudi Arabia’s bourse slumped 3 percent as the week’s trading began yesterday morning.
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