Report: Houthi Strike Took Saudi Refinery Offline Through Mid-August

The effects of the Houthi attack on Saudi energy infrastructure will continue on well into the next month, according to state oil company Saudi Aramco. The Houthi strike on the giant Jizan refinery complex near the Yemeni border caused damage to its sophisticated Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) on-site powerplant, which consumes heavy residual products and generates electricity, steam and hydrogen gas. A tank farm also sustained damage, Industrial Info Resources (IIR) told Reuters. The report aligns with the location of infrared heat signatures at the site on the day of the attack. 

The 400,000 bpd plant has shut down in order to make repairs, and the work will take until mid-August, per IIR. In the meantime, one of the biggest producers of fuel in the region is offline, adding to global restrictions on the availability of diesel. 

In addition to the effects at Jizan, the processing complex at Abqaiq also took a hard hit. Apparent strikes to the stabilization trains – where crude is desulfurized and lightly distilled to remove light fractions – could affect pipeline volumes, but Saudi Aramco has not yet commented on the facility's status. Public satellite imagery shows clear burn scars around four out of the six spheroid pressure vessels used during the degassing process at the facility. 

???????? Houthis/Iraqi militia drone strikes on Saudi Aramco's Abqaiq oil processing plant appear to have disabled multiple crude oil processing spheroids. Sentinel-2 imagery shows burn scars across four of the six spheroids, including two that appear to have been destroyed.… https://t.co/so1NKZwBwl pic.twitter.com/l4t6VQqQA3

At seven million barrels of capacity per day, Abqaiq is the most important single location for the global oil supply chain. Despite the potential ramifications of the attack – and any further attacks that might potentially follow – the Brent crude oil benchmark has settled below $90, down compared to one week ago.