Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco halted operations at its Ras Tanura refinery after the complex was struck by a drone, an industry source said, marking a further escalation in a wave of regional strikes. Ras Tanura, on the Gulf coast, houses one of the Middle East’s largest refineries with about 550,000 barrels per day of capacity and is a key export terminal for Saudi crude.
The shutdown was carried out as a precaution and, according to the source, the situation is under control. Saudi defence ministry officials said two drones were intercepted at the site; debris ignited a small fire but there were no injuries. Aramco did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
The closure is likely to heighten concerns about oil supplies as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a chokepoint that handles roughly a fifth of global oil flows — has been severely disrupted after attacks on vessels in the area. Brent crude futures jumped about 10% on Monday amid the unrest.
Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal Middle East analyst at risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft, said the strike on Ras Tanura represents a significant escalation and could push Gulf states closer to joining U.S. and Israeli military measures against Iran.
The drone strike at Ras Tanura comes amid a series of strikes across the region, including incidents reported in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha, Manama and at Oman’s commercial port of Duqm. Over the weekend most oil production in Iraq’s Kurdistan region — which exported around 200,000 bpd to Turkey in February — was shut down as a precaution, field operators said.
Saudi energy infrastructure has been targeted before. In September 2019 coordinated drone and missile attacks on the Abqaiq and Khurais facilities temporarily removed more than half of the kingdom’s crude output, triggering turmoil in global markets. Ras Tanura itself was previously struck in 2021 by Yemen’s Houthi forces, an attack Riyadh described at the time as a threat to global energy security.
