On Monday, Saudi Aramco temporarily shut its Ras Tanura oil refinery near Dammam after drone strikes, saying the closure was precautionary with no casualties and capacity over half a million barrels a day.
Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco temporarily shut its Ras Tanura refinery on Monday after an Iranian drone strike hit the sprawling energy complex on the country’s eastern coast, an industry source told Reuters.
As a precautionary measure, the refinery was shut down, and the situation was under control, the source said. A spokesperson for Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry said on Al Arabiya TV that there were no casualties from the attack.
The spokesperson did not provide further details on the damage or the duration of the shutdown.
A fire broke out at the Ras Tanura facility following the attack, according to media reports, with widely circulated social media footage showing the apparent impact and flames rising from part of the complex. Workers at Aramco installations were evacuating following the reported Iranian strikes.
Ras Tanura, located along the Persian Gulf, is one of the Middle East’s largest refining complexes, with a capacity of 550,000 barrels per day.
The site also functions as a key export terminal for Saudi crude, making it central to the kingdom’s energy infrastructure.
Oil markets reacted swiftly to the strike and the broader wave of attacks across the Gulf. Brent crude futures surged roughly 10% on Monday, reflecting heightened concern over the security of energy facilities and shipping routes in the region.
The refinery shutdown is expected to add to supply anxieties as maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz slows dramatically. Shipping through the narrow waterway, which handles around a fifth of global oil consumption, has ground to a near-halt after vessels were attacked in and around the strait on Sunday.
The reported strike on Ras Tanura came amid escalating regional hostilities involving Iranian drone attacks on energy and shipping targets across the Gulf. Aramco has not issued a public statement detailing the extent of damage to Ras Tanura or when operations might resume.
The situation at the refinery remained stable as of Monday, the industry source told Reuters, while Saudi authorities continued to assess the impact of the attack on the facility and surrounding operations.
The drone strike added to a wave of attacks on the region, including on Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha, Manama and Oman’s commercial port of Duqm.
Most of oil production in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, which exported around 200,000 bpd in February to Turkey, was shut down over the weekend as a precaution, field operators said.
Saudi Arabia’s heavily fortified energy facilities have been targeted previously, most notably in September 2019 when unprecedented drone and missile attacks on the Abqaiq and Khurais plants temporarily knocked out more than half of the kingdom’s crude production and roiled global markets.
Ras Tanura was attacked by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in 2021, in what Riyadh called a failed assault on global energy security.
