Saudi Arabia has closed a critical oil pipeline after it was struck by multiple attacks on Thursday launched from Iraqi territory, threatening a vital route for crude exports and setting oil prices to surge.
The strikes on the East-West oil pipeline in the Riyadh and Medina areas deal a further blow to global trade, after Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline and the Yemeni side of the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy told state media on Friday that the pipeline had been attacked, injuring a number of people. The 1,200km (746 miles) pipeline had been relied upon by the kingdom to bypass Iranian restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz, and export seven million barrels of crude each day.
‘The East-West pipeline in the Riyadh and Medina regions was subjected to several attacks on Thursday morning,’ an official told the SPA news agency, adding: ‘The pipeline was stopped as a precaution, and the attacks resulted in some injuries.’
It is understood pump stations located next to the pipeline itself were targeted. A satellite image taken on Friday appears to show extensive fire damage at one of the pumping stations. It follows an image taken on Thursday of smoke billowing out of a separate pumping station.
Drones are believed to have been launched from Iraqi territory. Iraq has since condemned the attack and said its prime minister had ordered an investigation into those responsible, according to a statement from its armed forces.
It follows Saudi Arabia’s decision to hold off on retaliation after Riyadh said drones launched from Iraqi territory struck its East-West pipeline.
Benchmark Brent crude settled at $104.56 a barrel on Friday, after rising more than 8 per cent over the course of the week, while average US diesel prices topped $6 (£4) for the first time. Prices spiked after news of the attack circulated on Thursday.
A satellite image shows black smoke rising from an area of Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline south of Medina, Hejaz Region, Saudi Arabia on Thursday
A satellite image shows black smoke rising from an area of Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline south of Medina, Hejaz Region, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday
It is not the first time the East-West pipeline has come under fire. The vital pipeline was attacked in April. But operations resumed rapidly after operations were restored by Saudi Aramco, the national oil company.
This week’s attacks come within days of the Iranian-aligned terrorist group’s seizure of the vital corridor linking Europe and Asia. The developments are likely to deepen the Middle East war’s impact on international commerce, after months of a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, which hailed its Yemeni allies’ advance on Friday.
Following a week-long offensive that has left hundreds dead, government officials said the Houthis seized the Yemeni side of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the southern gateway to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.
A local official with Yemen’s Saudi-backed government said on Friday that the Houthis had ‘completed their takeover of the Bab al-Mandab area and Mayyun Island’.
The Houthi’s military spokesman Yahya Saree said the ‘large-scale’ military operation was launched on September 3 in response to Saudi Arabia’s ‘blatant aggression’ against ‘our dear people’.
A government military official later reported the group had also seized Greater and Lesser Hanish, the last two islands in the narrow waterway not under their control, as well as all of the neighbouring Red Sea coastline. ‘Everything that was under our control on the western coast has fallen,’ the military official added.
A witness said gunmen were ‘deploying along the Bab al-Mandab shore and are driving around in military vehicles’.
The capture of the islands, particularly Mayyun in the middle of the strait, heightens the Houthis’ ability to attack Saudi tankers, which they have been targeting since July.
A satellite image taken by Planet Labs PBC on Fridaty shows a general view of an infrastructure site after it was damaged by fire southeast of Medina along the general route of Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline
Yemen’s Houthi rebels march during a mobilization campaign in Sanaa, Yemen, on Thursday
Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, has relied on the Red Sea ever since Iran’s Hormuz blockade choked off its shipments through the Gulf.
Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, congratulated the Houthis on their ‘resounding victory’ on Friday.
Farea Al-Muslimi, research fellow at the Chatham House think-tank, said: ‘Now the Iranians don’t only control… the Strait of Hormuz, but they control the other most strategic chokepoint in the Middle East.’
Saree said navigation through the Bab al-Mandab Strait was ‘safe’ for all but Saudi Arabia following the latest advances.
The Houthi offensive has killed more than 500 people since its launch a week ago, according to sources on both sides. It has also displaced about 46,000 people, the UN migration agency said on Friday.
It is part of renewed hostilities in Yemen’s civil war that began with the group’s takeover of the capital Sanaa in 2014.
Houthi supporter Abdulhamid Dhaifallah supported the group’s ‘great victories’ in and along the strait. ‘They have been preparing for this front for four years,’ the Sanaa resident said.
Before the Red Sea offensive, the Houthis already controlled a large part of Yemen’s north. They have recently attacked government-held areas in Hodeida and Taiz provinces and swept down the coast, seizing the port city of Mocha and Zuqar Island, north of Bab al-Mandab, on Thursday.
Mohamed, 46, who fled Mocha in the middle of the night, said there was an ‘apocalyptic’ atmosphere in the historic city.
On Friday, the spokesman for the Yemeni government forces, Majed Abdullah Al-Nazili, said they had begun shelling areas along the Taiz-Mocha road, while residents said they heard airstrikes.
While Saudi Arabia has also hit back with airstrikes and ordered troop reinforcements from Aden, where the internationally recognised government is based, it has failed to stop the Houthis’ advance.
Houthi media said two Saudi strikes hit Mocha’s airport on Friday, while a local official said the city’s seaport was hit by six missiles of unknown origin.
‘I think the Saudis have tried everything they can to avoid this war, but I don’t think they have any more choice,’ said Mr Al-Muslimi.
The UN Security Council met on Thursday to discuss the conflict with Yemen envoy Hans Grundberg, who called for ‘the active investment of every member of this body to contain’ what could become a more dangerous conflict.
The ongoing exchanges risk reviving a war that killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and sparked one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The Houthis, after seizing Sanaa and forcing out the government, fought a Saudi-led coalition from 2015 until a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022.
