State-owned Saudi Aramco on Tuesday its domestic fuel supplies were unaffected by a missile attack on Monday by Yemen’s Houthi militia group on the company’s petroleum products distribution plant in Jeddah. Saudi Aramco is currently assessing the scale and cost of the damage from the strike. Previously, Yahya Sarea, a spokesperson with Yemen’s Houthi group claimed that they were responsible for the strike.
Abdullah al-Ghamdi, the plant manager, said the missile struck one of 13 tanks on the site, causing significant damage to its roof. A big explosion and a consequent fire occurred at the tank but were extinguished in around 40 minutes with no casualties, al-Ghamdi noted. The affected tank can store up to 500,000 barrels of diesel oil, gasoline, or jet fuel. Aramco’s Jeddah plant has a total storage capacity of 5.2 million barrels. It distributes around 120,000 bpd of products to Jeddah, Mecca, and al-Baha.
Houthi attempted to attack Aramco’s facilities in the Red Sea city of Jazan. However, Saudi forces managed to intercept two unmanned boats used in the attack. Aramco’s facilities have been the target of Houthi’s attacks, the largest of which was the strike on the company’s Abqaiq plant and Khurais oilfield in September 2019, which knocked out 5.7 million bpd of oil output. Aramco managed to wrap up necessary repairs and brought back its production to 10 million bpd in just ten days after the attack.
