Top crude exporter Saudi Arabia on Monday said that Yemeni rebel attacks on the kingdom’s oil facilities pose a “direct threat” to global supplies.
Saudi Arabia “will not incur any responsibility” for shortages in oil supplies in light of the Iran-backed Houthi attacks, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
These cross-border assaults are a “direct threat to the security of oil supplies in these extremely sensitive circumstances witnessed by the global energy markets,” it added.
Photo: EPA-EFE/Kuwaiti News Agency handout
The statement came a day after the kingdom acknowledged a temporary drop in production after Houthis attacked a refinery with an armed drone.
The EU on Monday condemned the “large-scale missile and drone attack.”
“Such attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, are completely unacceptable and must stop,” the EU said a statement.
“The European Union urges all parties of the conflict in Yemen to engage constructively with UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg to achieve a comprehensive political agreement. This remains the only option to end this war,” it said.
Oil prices have repeatedly spiked above US$100 per barrel, driven by supply concerns centered on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On Monday, oil prices rose higher again. Brent crude was up more than 6 percent to more than US$114 per barrel at one stage.
Analysts said that the main mover of the market was news of the EU considering a ban on Russian oil imports, although the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Aramco) were also cited.
The drone assault on the Yasref refinery in Yanbu Industrial City on the Red Sea “led to a temporary reduction in the refinery’s production,” the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Energy said on Sunday.
It said the drop would “be compensated for from the inventory,” but did not provide numbers.
The Iran-backed Houthis, against whom Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition in Yemen, have repeatedly targeted the kingdom, including sites belonging to Aramco.
The Yemeni rebels on Sunday said that they had launched cross-border drone and missile attacks that targeted a number of “vital and important” establishments.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS