The Iran-aligned Houthi group on Tuesday claimed it had targeted Saudi Aramco’s Jazan oil refinery on Red Sea coast in southwest Saudi Arabia, in what was the third Houthi attack at the facility in the past two weeks, amid escalating hostilities in the region and a deadlock in the U.S.-Iran talks.
The armed forces of the Yemen-based Houthi group targeted the Jazan refinery with “a number of drones,” a military source at the Houthi forces told the Houthi-controlled Yemeni News Agency Saba.
The strike at the refinery was precise, the source said, adding that the facility was targeted “in response to the violation of Yemeni airspace over the Saada and Hajjah governorates.”
There was no immediate confirmation or other communication from Saudi Arabia about the reported incident.
The attack, if confirmed, would be the third in two weeks against the Jazan refinery. Last week, the Houthis said they had targeted Jazan again, for the second attack in less than a week.
Jazan, Saudi Aramco’s 400,000-barrels-per-day refinery, was closed at the end of July due to damage from a Houthi attack, which took place several days after the Iran-aligned group said it would target Saudi oil shipments and infrastructure in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The Houthi threat escalated security and safety risks to oil and fuel flows from the Middle East, forcing Saudi Arabia to re-route part of its oil exports from Yanbu on the Red Sea to the Suez Canal and the Egyptian port of Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean.
Heightened risks to shipping safety in the Red Sea have reportedly prompted some Asian refiners to ask Aramco to pick up its crude oil cargoes at Sidi Kerir as vessel owners are increasingly reluctant to pass through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to enter the Red Sea.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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