Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura, home to the country’s largest refinery and major crude oil export terminal, was attacked again by an unknown projectile on Wednesday, four officials said, two days after officials said a drone attack on the facility had shut down the refinery.
According to the state news agency, a Saudi Ministry of Defense spokesperson said initial indications were that the attack on the Ras Tanura refinery was carried out by a drone and that there was no damage.
The agency also cited Department of Energy officials as saying there were no disruptions to supplies. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil producers including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq have been unable to ship oil through the Strait of Hormuz since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on Friday.
Hundreds of ships have anchored on both sides of the strait as a precaution, and Iran has announced it will open fire on any vessels attempting to pass through the shipping chokepoint. Ras Tanura is located on the Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia’s east coast.
Aramco is seeking to reroute some of its crude oil exports to the Red Sea, avoiding the strait, sources said. Aramco did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Saudi Arabia’s heavily fortified energy facilities have been targeted before, most notably in September 2019, when unprecedented drone and missile attacks on the Abqaiq and Khurais factories temporarily destroyed more than half of Saudi oil production and disrupted global markets.
Ras Tanura was attacked by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in 2021, which Riyadh called a failed attack on global energy security.
(Reporting by Timur Azhari in Riyadh, Maha El Dahan and Youssef Saba in Dubai; Editing by Jan Harvey and Tomasz Janowski)
