Massive Fires In Saudi Arabia - Aramco Oil Facilities Hit By Drones

Residents of Abqaiq City, which has the largest community of Americans and Westerners are evacuating.

Houthi rebels in Yemen say they deployed 10 armed drones which hit two large Saudi Aramco oil facilities on Saturday morning, causing massive fires and huge clouds of smoke on the sites.

The attack was carried out by the Houthi Air Force, the spokesperson for the Yemeni rebel group, Brigadier Yahya Serai, said on Al Masirah TV, vowing to “expand the operations against the Saudi regime in the future.”

The drones targeted a refinery in the city of Abqaiq in the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province, which state-run giant Aramco describes as the world’s largest oil processing plant, and a refinery at the vast Khurais oil field, around 150km from Riyadh.

Multiple videos posted on social media show an Aramco compound engulfed in flames and thick black smoke billowing from the site. In some footage, loud bangs resembling the sound of explosions can be heard in the background, along with apparent sounds of gunfire.

https://www.rt.com/news/468796-saudi-aramco-fire-explosions/​

 

They hit both Abqaiq and Khurais, but apparently the fires are now under control. Big mistake. Abqaiq is only 37 miles from Dhahran. Yemen and Iran may finally have a war on their hands.

 

I doubt Washington would allow a war, but then one never knows. I came across a news site and they said that the twitters they were going to post of the fires were taken off, so I went to RT. I read that Saudi Arabia was going to raise the price of oil, so I can see Iran trying to stop their exports and forcing Germany and the EU to acquiesce to the previous agreement.

 

Yesterday OPEC was $62 .. Texas intermediate was $52.

Some analysts are predicting the PPB to go to $30 or even $20 which will destroy the international economy.

 

Here are some videos of the fire:

https://twitter.com/NateRosenblatt/status/1172695665723531264

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/14/sau...l-production-after-drone-attack-wsj-says.html
Saudi Arabia reportedly shuts down half its oil production after drone attack

 

I am still trying to figure what that is supposed to mean? LOL
In the meantime, what kind of junk have the Americans been selling to the Saudis, when an installation that is supposed to be well protect by American supplied air defense systems can't detect and take out a bunch of Houthi drones?

 

When the Saudi oil prices are depressed and they want to raise the price of oil per barrel, there's one way to do it. Set their own oil fields ablaze and whatever reserve is untouched, the price automatically skyrockets. And what better political tool to use against Iran or one of their other enemies? I don't care who the Saudis "claim" have taken the blame/credit for it.

There's some serious questions about how drones penetrated deep into Saudi airspace and hit such a strategic facility at Abqaiq and Khurais. The US Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain and there are US air bases and other bases along the Gulf from Kuwait to the UAE. These institutions are defended by US air defense. They also have radar that can detect threats more than 150km away, and they should be able to detect drones. Yet the drone attacks at four in the morning don’t seem to have triggered a US response or alert.

 

Abqaiq is home to me.. I am not in the mood for banter.. I expect many Americans and their families have been killed.

 

There are a lot of places that are home to a lot of people which have not strategic or economic value, but simply house civilians, which the Saudis have been regularly hitting in Yemen. In any case, whatever you were trying to say, you never said it clearly enough for me to understand? Are you suggesting the US will now enter the war in favor of the Saudis more directly than it has in the past? Or are you suggesting there will be war between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Or the US and Iran? Don't follow what you meant.

 

Yes.. Yesterday OPEC was at $62 .. Texas intermediate was at $52 so your assumptions are BS.

Lots and lots of American families live and work In Abqaiq and Khurais. This is a major FUBAR on the part of the Houthis and Iranians.

 

Please explain and expand on this. What do you expect will happen?

 

LOL, funny. It's almost kind of cute how naive you are. What do you project it will be next month, not tomorrow, not in a week, but in one month's time. Take a wild guess now, tell me what you think is going to happen to the price of oil.

 

The Saudis have put up with cross border attacks from Yemen since 2000.. That's why they moved all their villages back 20 kilometers from the border in 2002. Do you remember the attack on the USS Cole in 1998?

Khurais and Abqaiq are the world's two largest oil facilities.

 

Liberals in America are blaming climate change for the fires in Saudi Arabia.

 

I don't know what will happen... Right now there are thousands of Americans who need to get out or Arabia.

 

You are not answering my question.

 

You think? Very funny.

 

You mean the ppb could go to $150 a barrel or more? Could happen. But, that isn't what the Saudis want.

 

Fair enough, you don't know. Hard to claim anyone has committed a major FUBAR based on that! As for the thousands of Americans needing to evacuate, I don't see that happening either. Some may need to relocate temporarily while the fires are put back in control. But unfortunately, this isn't something that will lead to what you are suggesting.

 

This seems likely to be a waste of money if tiny drones can get through and cripple oil production:
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/03/04/politics/saudi-arabia-missile-purchase/index.html

The first phase of Saudi Arabia's long awaited purchase of an advanced US missile defense system has been finalized with the formal awarding of a contract on Monday.

Drones? Really? Something does not sound right

 

Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent

Excerpt:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49699429

This latest attack underlines the strategic threat posed by the Houthis to Saudi Arabia's oil installations.

The growing sophistication of the Houthis' drone operations is bound to renew the debate as to where this capability comes from. Have the Houthis simply weaponised commercial civilian drones or have they had significant assistance from Iran?

The Trump administration is likely to point the finger squarely at Tehran, but experts vary in the extent to which they think Iran is facilitating the drone campaign.

The Saudi Air Force has been pummelling targets in Yemen for years. Now the Houthis have a capable, if much more limited, ability to strike back. It shows that the era of armed drone operations being restricted to a handful of major nations is now over.

 

Half Saudi ARAMCO production has been halved.

 

"The Saudi Air Force has been pummelling targets in Yemen for years" yet now the Saudis are reporting as if the evil ones are Iran and Houthis

 

Now there's a thought. What are we going to do when terrorists can launch hordes of nano-drones on us?. Think of swarms of flies carrying high explosives.

And you thought mosquitoes were bad.