• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use June 26, 2022
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate & Society Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics

Trump Threatens Military Action After Drone Strikes Cut Saudi Oil Production by Half

September 15, 2019
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Compiled by The Energy Mix staff

Twitter

Twitter

1
SHARES
 

Saudi Arabia’s daily oil output has been cut by half after Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen claimed responsibility for a drone strike on what CNN describes as “among the world’s largest and most important energy production centres”.

By Sunday, Donald Trump was threatening military action against Iran, which funds the Houthis, tweeting that the United States is “locked and loaded depending on verification”. Iran denied a role in the strike, after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “accused Iran of being behind what he called ‘an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply’,” the New York Times reported Saturday.

The news broke just as U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry was planning a meeting with his newly-appointed Saudi counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, to discuss the kingdom’s plans to build nuclear reactors.

The attack took out 5.7 million of the 9.8 million barrels of oil that Saudi Arabia produces each day, bin Salman said. Daily global oil production stood at (a deeply sobering) 94.7 million barrels in 2018, according to Statista, and 80.6 million bbl/day so far this year, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration entry on Wikipedia.

“Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Saturday took responsibility for the attacks, saying 10 drones targeted state-owned Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais,” CNN writes, citing the Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency. Subsequent releases said 17 sites were hit, and that the attack may have involved cruise missiles as well as drones—“both and a lot of them,” said one senior U.S. official.

“Preliminary indications are that the attacks likely originated from Iraq, a source with knowledge of the incident told CNN. Iran wields significant influence in southern Iraq, which is situated much closer than Yemen to the affected Saudi sites.”

Iran foreign ministry spokesperson Seyyed Abbas Mousavi responded that “blind accusations and inappropriate comments in a diplomatic context are incomprehensible and meaningless,” Iraq denied the 10 militarized drones were launched from its territory.

But “the administration’s determination that Iran played a direct role in the attack marked a significant escalation in months of back-and-forth tensions between the United States and Iran. It raised questions about how Washington might retaliate—and why Iran would have risked such a confrontation,” the Times wrote yesterday.

“Administration officials said on Sunday they would seek to declassify more intelligence to buttress their case against Iran in the coming days. The satellite photographs released on Sunday did not appear as clear cut as officials suggested, with some appearing to show damage on the western side of the facilities, not from the direction of Iran or Iraq.”

News analysis cast the attacks as an escalation in Houthis’ military capability against Saudi Arabia. “Houthi missiles have struck Saudi sites before, including its oil infrastructure,” the Washington Post writes. “But the latest strike on Aramco was a symbolic blow against the historical hub of the kingdom’s oil riches, and the centerpiece of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plans to remake the kingdom’s economy.”

If the Houthis’ claims of responsibility is verified, the paper adds, it “would highlight their rapidly advancing military prowess. Saudi Arabia and the United States accuse Iran of providing the Houthis with military equipment and technical expertise, a charge Tehran has denied.”

Benchmark Brent crude prices rose almost 20% when trading opened Monday morning, “its biggest jump in 28 years’ time,” and “in light of news that the Saudi outage could last for months, this could be just the start,” Oilprice.com reports. “Bloomberg notes that this attack has resulted in the single worst disruption in oil markets ever, surpassing the loss of Kuwaiti and Iraqi petroleum supply in August 1990, when Iraq invaded its southern neighbour. It also exceeds the loss of Iranian oil output in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy.”

And “with every stakeholder in the Persian Gulf on edge, it goes without saying that any retaliatory action could send crude prices soaring beyond $80 per barrel.

The Globe and Mail notes that Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, “has become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The violence has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine and killed more than 90,000 people since 2015, according to the U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.” In the immediate aftermath of the latest strikes, Bloomberg said analysts and observers have been worrying about an attack on a Saudi oil facility.

“The Abqaiq crude processing plant is the single most important facility in the Saudi oil sector,” the U.S. news agency explained. “Abqaiq is more important to the Saudi oil sector than the kingdom’s Persian Gulf export terminals at Ras Tanura and Ju’aymah, or the Strait of Hormuz that links the Gulf to the Indian Ocean and the high seas. Crude can be diverted away from the Persian Gulf and Hormuz by pumping it across the country to the Red Sea through the East-West oil pipeline. But it cannot bypass Abqaiq. The East-West pipeline starts at Abqaiq and output from the giant Ghawar, Shaybah, and Khurais fields is all processed there, so an attack on the facility will impact crude flows to export terminals on both coasts.”



in Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics, International Security & War, Middle East, Nuclear, Oil & Gas, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

David/flickr
United States

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
580
Graco/Facebook
Food Security

Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use

June 27, 2022
116
Adam E. Moreira/wikimedia commons
Transit

Suspend Transit Fares, Not Gas Tax, Climate Advocates Urge Biden

June 26, 2022
55

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

David/flickr

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
580
Graco/Facebook

Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use

June 27, 2022
116
Konrad Summers/Kern West Oil Museum via Wikimedia Commons

Imperial Oil Backs Lithium Recovery Project in Alberta’s Leduc Oilfield

June 26, 2022
97
pxhere

Environmental Racism Bill Passes Second Reading in House of Commons

June 26, 2022
79
stockvault

Animal Agriculture Could Reduce Future Pandemic Risk, UK Researchers Say

June 26, 2022
73
Gustavo Petro Urrego/flickr

Colombia’s President-Elect Has ‘Ambitious’ Plans to Halt Amazon Deforestation

June 26, 2022
67

Recent Posts

Adam E. Moreira/wikimedia commons

Suspend Transit Fares, Not Gas Tax, Climate Advocates Urge Biden

June 26, 2022
55
moerschy / Pixabay

Pandemic Drives Up Support for Climate Action, Pessimism About Elected Leaders

June 26, 2022
27
hellomike/flickr

No Public Input as Canada Finalizes Climate Plan for Airlines

June 27, 2022
37
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Southeast Asia/wikimedia commons

Japan, Korea Sell Vietnam on Gas Amid Crackdown on Climate Activists

June 26, 2022
22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Barrow_Offshore_Wind_Farm

Global Offshore Wind Pipeline Doubles to 846 Gigawatts

June 26, 2022
38
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

U.S. Renewables Industries Scramble to Reuse, Recycle Before Waste Volumes Skyrocket

June 26, 2022
63
Next Post
Eastmain/Wikimedia Commons

Canada’s Climate Change Election: Will Extreme Weather Drive the Vote?

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}