Saudi Oil Infrastructure Gets Another Test In Ambitious Houthi Strike

In a rather stark reminder that a meaningful portion of the world’s oil supply is located in a veritable hornet’s nest, Ras Tanura was attacked on Sunday.

Specifically, a drone strike hit the tank farm and debris from a ballistic missile landed in Dhahran, an Aramco residential area.

The Houthis took “credit” for the attacks, which the Saudis appear to have mostly intercepted and otherwise repelled. In all, the Houthis said they employed eight ballistic missiles and more than a dozen bomb-equipped drones. Last week, they managed to hit a Jeddah fuel depot with a cruise missile. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea on Sunday called the assault a “wide operation in the heart of Saudi Arabia.”

To be sure, there’s nothing at all funny about this. But after six years (which is how long the Saudis and allied forces have been at war with the Houthis), the weekly theatrics come across as almost slapstick. Besides the perpetual tragedy that is North Korea and the desolation in Syria (where the cultural annihilation magnifies an unfathomably macabre human calamity), Yemen is the planet’s most acute humanitarian catastrophe.

The military situation has been a case study in intractable quagmires. At various intervals, the conflict in Yemen devolved into the dreaded “civil war within a civil war.” At times, factionalism made it virtually impossible for anyone (including the parties involved) to discern friend from foe. Mohammed bin Salman has been found “guilty” in the court of international public opinion on too many occasions to count for his starring role in facilitating all manner of horrors, in many cases using US arms.

But, being de facto king of Saudi Arabia means you’re effectively immune from any kind of real prosecution. That immunity was on full display last month, when the Joe Biden administration declined to directly punish bin Salman despite publicly releasing a short US intelligence report stating what’s been obvious to everyone for more than three years — namely that the Crown Prince countenanced the extra-judicial killing of a dissident journalist.

Bin Salman got a bit of comeuppance in September of 2019 when a briefly devastating attack on Abqaiq and Khurais knocked out half of Saudi oil production. (The Houthis claimed the attacks, while the Saudis faulted Iran directly, but the distinction is largely meaningless for casual observers.)

Sunday’s attack on Ras Tanura was described as the most serious assault on Saudi oil infrastructure since the September 2019 episode.

“One of the petroleum tank farms at the Ras Tanura Port… was attacked this morning by a drone, coming from the sea,” SPA said. “Another deliberate attempt was made this evening to attack Saudi Aramco’s facilities,” a spokesman for the energy ministry went on to recount, noting that “shrapnel from a ballistic missile fell near Saudi Aramco’s residential area in the city of Dhahran, where thousands of the company’s employees and their families from different nationalities live.”

There were no injuries and “no loss of life or property,” according to the Kingdom.

That’s nice to know. One wonders whether there will be injuries or “loss of life and property” somewhere in Yemen as a result of Sunday’s attacks, which the Saudis described as “terrorist” acts. The Saudi-led coalition conducted air strikes in Sanaa Sunday, and warned the Houthis that “civilian objects are a red line.” Scores of dead civilians in Yemen would doubtlessly agree.

As usual, Riyadh was keen to remind the world just how important Saudi Arabia and its oil really are.

“Such acts of sabotage do not only target the Kingdom, but also the security and stability of energy supplies to the world, and therefore, the global economy,” SPA said. “They affect the security of petroleum exports, freedom of world trade, and maritime traffic.”

That’s certainly true. And yet, as ever, it’s difficult to swallow such pronouncements without a smirk. One of the great ironies of the Trump administration was that despite repeatedly touting US energy independence and the desirability of extricating American troops from “endless war,” Trump went out of his way (including defying Congress) to protect the Saudis and supply them with arms. When bin Salman needed a little extra military support following the attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais, Trump promptly sent boots and weapons.

The Saudis will doubtlessly cite Sunday’s attacks as evidence that the Biden administration’s plan to revoke terrorist designations for the Houthis is jeopardizing the world’s oil supply.

Oh, and Riyadh also expressed concern for the environment. The Houthis, the Kingdom charged, are “expos[ing] coasts and territorial waters to grave environmental catastrophes.”