Page 8 - DMEA Week 12 2022

DMEA POLICY & SECURITY DMEA

Aramco facilities

under attack again

MIDDLE EAST THE day the company announced its full-year The same day, the US said it has transferred
results for 2021, Saudi Aramco facilities came an undisclosed number of Patriot anti-missile
under attack once again from missiles and interceptors to Saudi Arabia, fulfilling an urgent
drones launched by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi request from Saudi authorities.
militia, targeting a water desalination plant at Patriot systems are used widely for air defence
Al-Shaqeeq, a distribution station at Jazan, a by both the Saudi military and Aramco and the
power station near Aramco’s HQ in Dhahran company is understood to have invested heav-
and gas facilities at Yanbu’ and Khamis Mushait. ily to beef up its defences after a string of major
While president and CEO Amin Nasser said attacks in 2019.
that “there were no injuries or fatalities and, no In early March, the Houthis said that they had
impact to the company’s supply to its customers”, carried out an attack on Aramco’s 130,000 bpd
the Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Co. joint Riyadh refinery using three drones while also
venture with Sinopec reduced throughput at its targeting company facilities at Jazan and Abha
430,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery on the Red near the border.
Sea coast but said it would compensate for the The SPA reported only that there had been
shortfall in output from its stockpiles. an attack, noting that supplies were not affected.
Speaking out against the attacks, the Saudi Jazan refinery remains in the commissioning
Press Agency (SPA) quoted a source at the phase, running at around half of its 400,000 bpd
Ministry of Foreign Affairs as saying that Saudi capacity, with full operations anticipated later
Arabia would not accept any responsibility for this year to produce 209,900 bpd of ultra-low sul-
shortages in global oil markets stemming from phur diesel, 71,400 bpd of 91 RON and 95 RON
Houthi efforts to disrupt the Kingdom’s oil gasoline, 48,500 bpd of high sulphur fuel oil and
operations. 6,700 bpd of LPG, according to Aramco.™

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