Saudi Aramco, a state-owned oil giant, will try to restore half of its oil output after a drone knocked out two of its key oil facilities in Saudia Arabia.
The closure of Abqai and Khurais impacted almost 5.7 million barrels of oil production a day and about 5% of the world’s daily crude production, according to Saudi Aramco.
Several officials believe that they can resume 2 million barrels by the end of Monday. This is contrary to earlier claims stating that full production would restart earlier of this week.
“If it is a few days, the Saudis are working to restore production and will provide more information in the next 48 hours, the impact is more likely to be $3-5 to Crude,” said Roberto Friedlander, head of Seaport Global energy training.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled 0.4 percent lower at $54.85 on Friday, and Brent crude futures traded 0.2 percent lower at $60.25 per barrel.
This weekend’s strikes are the biggest attack on Saudi oil infrastructure since 1990 when the Iraqi military fired scud missiles into the kingdom. The attack sent the Saudi stock market down 2.3 percent at the open on Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Experts said that oil price may rise up from $10 per barrels however its effect may be minimal depending on how fast officials will work in order to restart oil production.
The said attack also caused a halt of gas production that will reduce the supply of ethane and natural gas liquids by 50%.
Saudi Aramco President and CEO Amis Nasser assured that there were no workers hurt in the attack and emergecy crews quickly brought the situation under control.
“Work is underway to restore production and a progress update will be provided in around 48 hours,” Nasser said.
An average of 5% of world’s oil supply depends on Saudi Arabia.
Houthi rebels from Yemen took full responaibility on the drone attack and said that it is the largest attack they created on the entire kingdom.
“We promise the Saudi regime that our future operations will expand and be more painful as long as its aggression and siege continue,” a spokesman of Houthi rebels said,
