Manama : Oil prices surged following reports of Houthi drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia's major oil facility on Sunday. Crude oil prices crossed $ 70 a barrel on Monday for the first time in over a year.
Brent crude futures gained $1.14 to $70.47 a barrel while Benchmark US crude touched its highest in more than two years. It added $1.10 to $67.19 per barrel, up 1.7%, falling back from bigger gains earlier in the day.
Prices have been recovering in the past few months after plummeting last year with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Oil prices fell shapely as millions of people stayed home and avoided traveling due to lockdowns and other travel restrictions. Any rise in prices is a boon for the oil industry, which has lost billions of dollars during the pandemic.
An oil storage yard at Ras Tanura Port, one of the largest oil shipping ports in the world, was attacked with a drone on Sunday morning, and shrapnel from a ballistic missile fell near Aramco’s residential compound in Dhahran same day in the evening, according to a Saudi energy ministry statement.
The defense ministry said both the drone and the missile were intercepted and destroyed.
There were no casualties or loss of property in either attack. And it didn’t affect the oil production, sources said.
This is the second confirmed attack on state-owned oil giant, Saudi Aramco. The Houthis had attacked Aramco's Abqaiq crude processing plant and Khurais oil field with drones on September 19, 2019.
After the attack, global oil prices soared 14% the next day. But that prior attack disrupted more than half of its daily exports, halting 5% of world crude oil output.
The Houthis ramped up cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia in February after American President Joe Biden halted support to Saudi offensive operations in Yemen’s war. White House also reversed a decision by former President Donald Trump to put Houthis on a “terror list”.
The attacks have mostly targeted southern Saudi cities as well as the kingdom’s oil industry in some cases.
The Houthis clashed with Yemeni government forces recently in the strategic northern province of Marib
