Oil prices rose sharply Tuesday morning after reports of a\ndrone attack on Saudi oil pumping stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the official Saudi Press Agency, Saudi Energy\nMinister Khalid al-Falih said the incident was an “act of terrorism”\nwhile describing the drone attacks on two oil pumping stations near Riyadh for\nthe East – West pipeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brent crude futures rose 1.6% to $71.38 a barrel, up $1.15.\nThe price of US crude futures (WTI) remained stable at $61.95 dollars a barrel,\nup 1.4% during the session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fire has been contained later throughout the day, and\nal-Falih confirmed that oil production had not stopped. Saudi Aramco said its oil\nand gas supply to Europe had not been affected and no one had been hurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This act of terrorism and sabotage in addition to\nrecent acts in the Arabian Gulf do not only target the Kingdom but also the\nsecurity of world oil supplies and the global economy,” al-Falih said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one was directly accused of carrying out the attack so\nfar, but a Yemeni television channel run by Houthi said\non Tuesday morning that it launched drone attacks on several Saudi facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Seven drones carried out attacks on vital Saudi\ninstallations,” the Masirah television channel quoted a military official\nas saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
” These attacks prove again that it is important for us\nto face terrorist entities, including the Houthi militias in Yemen that are\nbacked by Iran.\u201d Faleh said, according to a statement by the Saudi Press\nAgency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Houthi rebels in Yemen, backed by Iran, have been fighting Saudi\nArabia since the kingdom launched an offensive in early 2015 to defend its\ninternationally recognized government, which was overthrown by the Huthis. The\nUnited Nations considered the conflict, which lasted more than four years, the\nworst humanitarian crisis in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tadawul, Saudi Arabia\u2019s main stock index fell 3.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The exchange, which joined the MSCI Emerging Markets Index\nthis year as part of the country’s economic diversification agenda, fell 2.7 percent\non Monday on the back of government reports that two Saudi oil tankers were\namong four ships targeted in an unspecified “sabotage attack” of the\nUnited Arab Emirates coast of Fujairah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Concerns about a\npotential conflict<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The series of incidents has escalated tension in the Kingdom,\nwhere a sabotage attack on vessels on Sunday raised fears of a possible\nconflict with Iran. The escalation could threaten the Strait of Hormuz, which\nis the transit point for about 30 percent of the world’s sea-transported oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The news comes a week after the increasingly provocative\nlanguage between Washington and Tehran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the basis of “very real” threats coming from\nIran, with specific details being omitted, Foreign Secretary Mike Pompeo said\nduring a news briefing on Sunday that all options, includig military and otherwise,\nwould be on the table if Iran was to ” make a bad decision.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tehran said last week it would return to higher levels of\nuranium enrichment, in violation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, if Europe does\nnot protect it from the impact of US sanctions that crippled Iran’s economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This came after the White House published news of an\nAmerican strike group carrier in the Gulf to send an “unmistakable”\nmessage to Iran. Although the ship was on a routine tour, the administration\u2019s\nannouncement indicated its willingness to confront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As military equipment in the Persian Gulf rises in volume,\nanalysts and foreign officials fear that misjudgment or misunderstanding could\nspark a serious conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt told reporters on\nMonday: ” We are very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by\naccident with an escalation that is unintended.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oil prices rose sharply Tuesday morning after reports of a drone attack on Saudi oil pumping stations. According to the official Saudi Press Agency, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said the incident was an “act […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40,4],"tags":[42,36,34,114,41,44,43,72,102,45,109,115],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions\/1201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skyeconomynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}