Riyadh: Drone attacks sparked fires at two Saudi Aramco oil facilities on Saturday, the interior ministry said, the latest such assault claimed by Yemeni rebels as the energy giant prepares for a much-anticipated stock listing.
Huge palls of smoke rose into the sky after the pre-dawn attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais, two major Aramco facilities in eastern Saudi Arabia, which follow a spike in regional tensions with Iran.
The attacks highlight how the increasingly advanced weaponry of the Iran-linked Huthi rebels -- from ballistic missiles to unmanned drones -- poses a serious threat to oil installations in Saudi Arabia, the world's top crude exporter.
“At 4:00 am (0100 GMT) the industrial security teams of Aramco started dealing with fires at two of its facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais as a result of... drones,” the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.
“The two fires have been controlled.” The statement added that an investigation had been launched after the attack in the kingdom's Eastern Province, but did not specify whether operations at the two facilities had been affected. Interior ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said there were no casualties. But the full extent of the damage was not immediately clear as reporters were not allowed near the plants.
In recent months, the Huthi rebels have carried out a spate of cross-border missile and drone attacks targeting Saudi air bases and other facilities in what they say is retaliation for a long-running Saudi-led bombing campaign on rebel-held areas in Yemen. The rebels launched “a large-scale operation involving 10 drones that targeted refineries in Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia”, the group’s Al-Masirah television reported.
Last month, an attack claimed by Huthi rebels sparked a fire at Aramco's Shaybah natural gas liquefaction facility but no casualties were reported by the company.
Rebel drones also targeted two oil pumping stations on Saudi Arabia's key east-west pipeline in May, shutting it down for several days.
