Sanaa, 09 August (H.S.):

Yemen’s Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah, has claimed responsibility for an attack on a Saudi Aramco refinery in Saudi Arabia’s Jizan province. The group said the strike was carried out in retaliation for Saudi drone attacks on Yemen’s Saada and Hajjah provinces.

In a statement broadcast by Al Masirah TV, a Houthi-controlled media outlet based in Beirut, the group claimed responsibility for the attack and said the facility was targeted using drones.

Saudi Aramco, formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is Saudi Arabia’s state-owned petroleum and natural gas company. Headquartered in Dhahran, it is one of the world’s largest and most profitable energy companies.

According to the Houthi statement broadcast on Al Masirah TV, the group targeted the facility with drones. The Houthis are a political and military movement based primarily among Zaidi Shia Muslims in northern Yemen. The group receives support from Iran and has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

According to an Al Jazeera report, the Saudi Energy Ministry had earlier said only that firefighting teams had extinguished a fire that broke out in the morning at one of the facilities of the Saudi Aramco refinery at the Red Sea port of Jizan. The ministry did not immediately attribute the fire to an attack.

The United Nations Security Council has condemned Houthi attacks, while Saudi Arabia has welcomed the council’s position and reiterated its call on the international community to adopt a firm stance against the group.

Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said in a statement posted on Telegram that the group had carried out what he described as a “precise attack” on the Saudi Aramco refinery in response to alleged incursions into the airspace of Yemen’s Saada and Hajjah provinces.

Saree made the claim several hours after the Saudi Energy Ministry announced that a fire had broken out at one of the facilities of the Saudi Aramco refinery in Jizan and had subsequently been brought under control. Shortly after the Saudi authorities reported the incident, Israel’s Channel 14 attributed the attack to the Houthis in its news coverage.

The reported Houthi strike comes after Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye signed the “Makkah Joint Defence Agreement” on Friday, adding another significant development to the evolving regional security landscape.

Saudi Aramco is regarded as one of the world’s leading energy companies in terms of production and reserves. Its origins date back to 1933, when Saudi Arabia entered into an agreement with American companies for oil exploration and development. The Saudi government subsequently completed the company’s nationalisation in the 1980s.

Saudi Aramco currently has a market valuation equivalent to approximately Rs 162 lakh crore in Indian currency. The company has a maximum sustained crude oil production capacity of 12 million barrels per day, a level it can reportedly maintain for an extended period without additional investment.

Under prevailing global market conditions and OPEC+ production agreements, its actual crude oil output is generally lower, at around 9 million to 10.1 million barrels per day. When crude oil is combined with natural gas and other energy products, the company’s total hydrocarbon production can reach approximately 13.2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

The company also holds one of the world’s largest proven crude oil reserve bases, estimated at around 267 billion barrels.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar