Oil prices remained elevated on Wednesday amid increasing attacks on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and an escalation of fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, an Iran-backed militia. The Houthis late Tuesday struck a building owned by the state-owned energy giant Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's energy ministry said, as Saudi and Houthi forces traded attacks. Saudi Arabia has bombed Houthi positions in Yemen in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
More ships were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz in the last week than in the entire month of September. More than 100 ships have been struck since the start of the war in Iran, now in its eighth month. Over the weekend, the Houthis carried out the deadliest attack on the kingdom in more than a decade, striking King Khalid International Airport and killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 300.
The Houthi assault on the Saudi Aramco headquarters in Dhahran caused a "limited fire" but no casualties, and no oil production or export infrastructure was damaged. The Brent crude benchmark traded about 1 percent higher, above $106 a barrel. "Given the attack did not impact oil operations, the market did not react," said Amena Bakr of Kpler.
The strike came during the WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh, where most prominent attendees, including the chief executives of BP, Exxon, Shell, Chevron and Total Energies, canceled their trips. Meanwhile, more oil is reaching global customers as U.S. forces guide tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, and Saudi Arabia is exporting from both coasts again. The International Energy Agency said Persian Gulf producers exported 13.9 million barrels per day last month, or 75 percent of prewar levels, but kept its global supply outlook largely unchanged due to security concerns.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing