Houthi Drone Strike Has Damaged Half of Saudi Oil Facilities

A Houthi Drone Strike has damaged half of Saudi Arabia’s oil capacity. Saudi Arabia says the fire a will be put out and repairs made within days.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Saturday took responsibility for the attacks, saying 10 drones targeted state-owned Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais, according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency.

Five million barrels per day of crude production have been impacted after fires raged at the sites, one of them the world’s largest oil production facility, people with knowledge of the kingdom’s operations said. The latest OPEC figures from August 2019 put the total Saudi production at 9.8 million barrels per day.

Two Saudi Aramco plants (refineries) at the heart of the kingdom’s oil industry are on fire.

Abqaiq is 60 km (37 miles) southwest of Aramco’s Dhahran headquarters. The oil processing plant handles crude from the world’s largest conventional oilfield, the supergiant Ghawar, and for export to terminals Ras Tanura – the world’s biggest offshore oil loading facility – and Juaymah. It also pumps westwards across the kingdom to Red Sea export terminals.

Khurais, 190 km (118 miles) further southwest, contains the country’s second largest oilfield. Many Western employees of Aramco live in Abqaiq. The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh said it was unaware of any injuries to Americans from the attacks.

The Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes on Yemen’s northern Saada province, a Houthi stronghold.

2006 Prediction Made by Brian Wang

In 2006, Brian Wang of Nextbigfuture made a prediction of this event.

Prediction made in 2006: Successful terrorist attack on Saudi Oil Infrastructure, oil goes to over $10/gallon.

This prediction was in the wildcard predictions section near the bottom of 156 predictions that were publicly made on the nanotech-now website.

I now do not think the price impact of this event will be that high. However, the terrorist attack on Saudi oil was correct. The prediction has a date range which was not correct. My prediction in 2006 had an irrelevant date range.

This attack will not have that much impact on world oil supply. Saudi Arabia will put on the fires and get oil production restored quickly. There will be an impact of an increased risk premium on the price of oil. There will also be an increased cost to oil companies for increased security at key oil facilities.

SOURCES- CNN, Nanotech-now (predictions from the author Brian Wang.), Twitter
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

83 thoughts on “Houthi Drone Strike Has Damaged Half of Saudi Oil Facilities”

  1. Nope. Iranian treasury receives oil revs and goes into the budget, after equivalent IRR conversion. Saudi, Iraq, and others same thing. The 2018 government budget was $92bn and the 2019 budget is pegged at $47bn of which 35% was planned to be funded by oil (1.5mbbl/day @$54/bbl). Obviously that is not happening. The government can’t easily deficit spend because then the IRR becomes worthless and inflation goes nuts.

    Importers in Iran can still buy stuff in USD (like medicine) but the government allocation of USD available is getting more scarce every day.

    So the government needs to either drastically cut services, or raise taxes. Former is riots, latter is impossible because there is no money to take it from (if you don’t include the mullah billionaires).

  2. This is how I would do it:

    1) Hit what’s necessary for fightign fires, such as water tubes.
    2) Create a leak in tanks with refined and highly flammable products (not diesel fuel) and incinerate the leaked fluids.

    The fires can then grow uncontrollable, as disastrous refinery fires elsewhere in the past showed.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juanico_disaster

  3. The fiscal deficit is no doubt in domestic currency and can be sustained or not sustained regardless of exports. The question is really only whether they decide to raise the revenue domestically.
    The export revenue influences the ability to afford imports.

  4. “Skynet is the world’s first Automated Defense Network, processing information at ninety teraflops. It is the controlling force behind all of the battle units. It pools data from battle units, develops tactics and coordinates attacks.”
    We have tried it in 1984 – didn’t work 🙂

  5. “The operation appeared to circumvent the defenses of Saudi Arabia’s military, including the six battalions of Patriot missile defense systems produced by U.S. defense contractor Raytheon — each of which can cost in the region of $1 billion.”

    A little more military spending does not necessarily translate to a little more security.

  6. What if it isn’t jet powered? What if we’re talking about a small prop powered craft, with the engine no larger than a big bird? Set it to meander towards the target and you wouldn’t even see it.

  7. Oh, you still need antiaircraft weaponry. But with enough warning you don’t need to have it set to shoot down anything without a human in the loop.

    Providing said human can be trusted to remain on duty and not sneak off for a cigarette or to play a round of angry birds.

  8. Well, assuming his parents help him with paying for the purchase. But now we’re looking at the resources of an adult again.

  9. If someone insists that only they and their friends know the truth about some grand conspiracy, and the rest of the world is wrong, then they are likely to be incorrect themselves.

  10. The number one (and as far as I can see, insurmountable) barrier to No. 1 is price of steel fab, which the US will never match China on because of state subsidies in the Chinese industry. No. 2 faces the same problems.

  11. Long distance “droning” is a thing.
    VHF/UHF transmitters can give Johnnie’s drone 5/10mile range.
    I’m sure google and a big box store could help Johnnie with his firecrackers.

  12. I’ve often wondered about the term “truther”. If someone seeks the truth, is that a bad thing? Also if you’re not a “truther” then what are you? Isn’t the opposite of truth a lie? So does that make non-truthers liars?

  13. Hmmm… now that Gatwick airport drone might just have been a test run.

    Get a large, technically advanced country to try very hard to track where you are controlling a drone. If they can’t then you have got a successfully stealthy system. If they do… “it was just a prank your honour…”

  14. According to news reports , drones attacked two major facilities run by Saudi Aramco , Saudi Arabia’s State-owned oil giant , which triggered huge fire in world’s largest oil processing factory  crucial to global energy supplies. It is said that the attacks may impact reduction of  oil  production by half .   One area of major worrisome concern could be its impact on global trade. Yemen’s  rebels are reported to have claimed responsibility of the drone attack. But it can be opined that the attack may have deep impact on  the escalation of  tensions in the Middle-East. In this context ,  it is apt to refer readers to this Vedic astrology writer’s predictive alert in article – “ World trends in April to August 2019” – brought to public domain widely in March and subsequently on 5 April 2019. The predictive alert had said that during a period of four and a half months from mid-April to August 2019 ,  more care and appropriate strategy may be called for against  “ fire and blast”  involving energy resources infrastructure  in Saudi Arabia also , which may cause huge damage. The alert had also indicated that  such scenario may   reflect  major worrisome concern  in economic  and financial sector.   A review of these predictive alerts in the month of May had suggested that a need for such more care and appropriate strategy could reach out to mid-October , while the period from about 7 August to 9 October in 2019 looked to be particular. And within that , 20 September to 9 October m

  15. The problem is that 10 miles away is in Saudi A — not exactly one of the more easy going among police states… This must have come from hundreds of miles away.

    (The last news, seven hours after you wrote this, was that the attack wasn’t only drones but cruise missiles too. And from either Iraq or Iran directly.)

  16. Absolutely. But, as I said, detection is not the main problem. The question is what you do next. I can only recall of Lockheed’s AEGIS and Israel’s Iron Dome capable in taking 10 mach 3.5 missiles at a reasonable range. Both are national-use only.

  17. Here is a thought: oil trade of the decade. Go long crude, send some missiles via proxy. Collect. Or, the political “vise” attack on trade. Disrupt oil, make China suffer even more. Remember, oil pricing is inelastic. Back in 2006 just took a little production problem in Nigeria and some Iraqi rebels to send oil to 100 bucks. That level will cost China about $100bn more annually (and vice versa put much of that into US hands given the US is the new OPEC).

  18. yes, I suppose harming mills requires a lot. Flying drones into Heathrow, JFK, etc airspace probably is much more effective. And don’t even need explosives. Or hacking into the power grid.

  19. No, not really. the US sanctions are based on dollar limits, not volume. Else it would be “cheating”. The current limit set for Iranian petro exports is now zero, given the waivers have expired. It means Iran’s oil exports have more or less been cut off. China has about 16m bbl of Iranian oil sitting in tankers offshore, unable to clear (because it’s all in USD…). Iran’s daily exports as we speak are in the 100,000 bbl range (compared to last year 1.7m bbl) and nearly all is China, sitting around. Iran hasn’t curtailed production that much (goes to show how hard it is to turn it it back on) so they are storing massive amounts.

    The smuggling and evasion is very little compared to what Iran needs to survive. The tanker re-loading schemes are not effective because of the (now) very tight USD money flow tracking. Oil is hard to hide.

    It’s a high stakes game. Iran is running out of places to store the oil and at some point will have to turn off production, which is a more or less permanent action. That, and they are running a fiscal deficit this year of about $15bn with only $30bn left in their sovereign fund. Basically, in less than a year from now, Iran will run out of money and to makes ends meet will have to cut government expenditures by about 50%. Then it’s anyone’s guess what will happen.

  20. Very interesting

    1 That this big Saudi oil installation was not better protected
    2 As their economy sinks under the pressure of sanctions, Iran
    seems to be trying to set off a shooting war.
    3 Not completely clear this was caused by drones from Yemen
    News media seems prone to fake news. Could have been missiles
    from another Iranian controlled base.
    4 Hug a fracker. American Frackers have made this less of
    a crisis in the US and by reflection less of a crisis world wide.
    5 If Iran will do this, why allow Iran nuclear weapons ??
    6 Drones are dangerous and a threat.

  21. You are on point. And anyways houthis are extremely convenient catspaw for Iran. The whole operation is screaming al quds.

  22. Depends how quickly the drone attacks get ramped up.

    If drone attacks ramp up slowly, then the risk adjusted costs of world wide supply chains will also ramp up, but giving enough time for the supply chains to move back to safer (read closer) sources.

    Insurance would also be a factor. A steady trickle of such attacks would ramp up the costs of insurance* on distant supplies (especially sources in less stable areas of the world) and so, once again, the systems readjust to the cheapest option, which is now a factory/mine/whatever within more civilised areas.

    *Insurance can be formal insurance policies, but also includes things like hedging derivatives and future contracts. Indirectly it also includes things like the credit worthiness of your own company as the market judges you more or less vulnerable to what is now seen as an inherent risk.

  23. Immediately they came to the conclusion that it was Iran’s doing. How convenient. Now where have we seen this before. OHH yea before the second tower fell they were pumping the Osama Ben Ladin did it. Then they pimp the weapons of mass destruction story.
    Wash Rinse Repeat

  24. Yes and you are not the only one. I believed that to attack the facility all you needed was a GPS and a small model (3′ wingspan) plane loaded with C4 etc. These could be launced 10 miles away and you could launch 50 of these. Even if 1/2 failed then 25 devices hitting a refinery or processing station could do a large amount of damage. I predicted this 10 years ago. I believe that GPS jammers should be placed all around the facilities. But then the obvious should have been considered.

  25. Tho’ it’d be a humungous investment,

    In other words, it’s not going to happen.

    The current structure is due to the long term pursuit of the lowest cost of all inputs. New ai enable automation can close the gap in certain areas, but poorly educated people will still be cheaper for a long time to come.

    It will be an ever deteriorating status quo or you can advocate lowering the minimum wage to ~1:50/hr to boost on-shoring.

  26. We’ve had well over half a century of terrorism operating within 1st world countries. If you know how to shut them all down then you know more than say the British military, the French military, let alone the Middle East.

  27. I suppose you could have more than one radar station. A ring of radars 50 miles from your facilities gives you >10 times the warning.

    1. Even if they are still selling the same amount, they get more money if the oil price spikes.
    2. No doubt there is a degree of smuggling and sanction evasion. If oil doubles in price (I don’t expect it to, but what do I know?) then smuggling and sanction evasion would shoot right up.
  28. anyone with a grudge can slap together a drone with assorted weapons

    Not really.

    Well it depends on what you mean by “anyone”

    Johnnie in grade 7 who has watched 3 videos on youtube and now fancies himself a revolutionary? No, he can’t do much more than drop a firecracker from a toy that he is controlling from 50m away within line of sight.

    Marissa, 23, who has just been dumped by her boyfriend Frank and wants to destroy his stupid yacht that she can’t go out in any more? She can probably manage a road flare or even a tannerite bomb from something she controls from a km or ten. (See Gatwick airport.)

    But basically any group big enough and with enough resources to, in the year 2000, do a car bomb, can now, in 2019, put together something that appears to be beyond even Saudi air defence.

  29. Houthis been trying for 2 years to score more than minor damage and near misses, they finally got lucky and Iran gets all the credit. Israel manage to make them the USA’s default bogey for everything, they even get odds after every bump in the night.
    Few make weapons yet many fight wars, the few merchants of death supply the weapons for money.

    Drone attack on oil pipeline on 14 May 2019

    Missiles attack on Abha airport on June 12, 2019

    Drone attack on power station in Jizan province on June 20, 2019

    Drone attack on Abha airport on July 2, 2019 on July 2, 2019 

    Missile attack on port city of Dammam in Saudi Arabia on 1 Aug 2019

    Drone attacks on Khalid Airbase and Abha and Najran airports on 5 Aug 2019

    Drone attack on Shaybah oil field on 17 Aug 2019

    Missiles attack on Jizan airport on August 25, 2019

    Saudi intercept a drone over Yemen’s Saada province September 10, 2019

  30. There is a term “fly under the radar”.
    How? Horizon. Earth’s Curvature.

    Radar mounted 50 ft above ground will have its distance to the horizon of 4.7 miles. If the drone flies at some 15 ft altitude (which is peace of cake in desert condition), that distance is 5.5 miles.
    Now, $4k Chinese jet turbine will give you 430+ mph. Modern radar’s revolution time is 15 rpm (1 revolution per 4s). So, in 4 seconds that drone will fly 0.5 miles and thus the distance is 5 miles, which, at the given speed, should take some 30 sec till missile hits.
    Unless you have AI directly operating zenith battery with full authority to engage immediately upon the target lock – there is no chance to protect from such an attack.

  31. This, make an scaled down V1 buzz bomb with an gps / inertial navigational unit.
    You might even be able to make it tactical using the mobile network and order to secondary targets.

    Talking heads==balloons with makeup and an wig.
    Note that main purpose here is to increase fear so you watch the next update.

  32. You catch the operators and they suppliers.
    Then you swat all of their facebook friends.
    Throw terrorist charges everywhere it will stick, other places start look deep.
    Most people had dodged taxes done other minor illegal stuff.
    Plenty of the guys caught in this net is petty criminals, majority is idiots who wanted to make some sort of impact but has an family.
    This is how France rolled up their first waves of terrorists.

    The last wave was isil influenced idiots who was told to do stupid attacks with an knife or an car.
    Much harder to find in time and outside of isil boasting irrelevant to killing rate.

  33. Well, how about that … just saw pictures from a live-broadcast from Saudi Arabia on ABC.  Looks like my guess was closer to the truth… not small, not quadracopter, but a winged drone. Fusilage diameter maybe 30 cm (a foot), length unknown. Jet powered. Low-and-fast approach. Made from composites.  

    See? One doesn’t need to be a ‘rocket scientist’ to imagine how the “Houthis” did it. Of course, in the same broadcast, ABC reports that Iran is denying all complicity and engineering involvement. Why not? Styrofoam and fiberglass don’t have signatures. 

    The “talking head” at ABC in the “analysis department” suggests that at most the drone might have cost $10,000 to fab. I’d say … WAY less than that. Mostly manpower, which is darn cheap in Iran. 

    Just saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  34. Syria with support of Russia, Trump agreed that Assad with support of Russia would win, no other realistic options.

    One of the few good things with Trump is that he is good at high stake real politic.

  35. While I do not argue the point you are making- Saudi does not make the top ten list of refineries (at least according to LOLipedia). More important in my estimation is that they keep shipping crude, and maybe increase output to compensate for the loss of refined product.

  36. Yes, one of my companies write procedures for how to take oil platforms up again after shutdowns, its books on it.
    They set fire to stuff and the operators shut system down.

    Now with 20 something pgm strikes you could probably wreck the place for years hitting stuff who is hard to replace or flammable.

    Both the Saudi and Iran has this option, the game is on.

  37. They don’t have to carry a sizable payload, it’s a refinery. A very small drone with thermite, landing and igniting on the big tanks would be a start. The thermite will burn thru steel. The whole thing could be very inexpensive and so it could be used in huge numbers.

  38. The real problem is … you can’t. The gotcha that causes me to say that is that with nothing more complicated than styrofoam, fiberglass, epoxy and some off-the-shelf cheap Chinese-made radio-controlled actual JET engines … back yard experimenters here in the US are already making ‘flying things’ capable of delivering 100 kg warheads. Its pretty scary, actually. 

    But being able to make them, doesn’t imply that they’re undetectable … which is your theory: detect them early, blow them out of the sky, and go back home after a long day on the line. 

    Thing is, styrofoam is intrinsically stealthy. So is fiberglass. So is carbon fiber. So are all the little bits and pieces one makes with thermoplastic 3-D parts-making “printers”. Only the engines are non-stealthy. They are small tho’, compared to the conventionally expected threats to which anti-aircraft RADAR and missiles are engineered to handle. 

    Who knows. 

    I’m a physics person, and can think of at least 5 ways to make “the motor and electronics” essentially stealthy with nothing more complicated than what anyone can buy retail from the local Ace hardware store. 

    Anyway. 
    Not to be too depressing.
    But I don’t think we can protect against these things in the near term.
    Which is a problem. 

    Just saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  39. Yes, and no regarding steel mills.

    Steel mills are mostly made of steel, right? Not much petroleum, few explosive gasses, no volatile liquids, auto-ignition catalysts, soft vacuums and enormous elevated product tanks sitting about. 

    So, if the home-brew 100 kg (warhead) drone comes along, what exactly is it going to irreparably damage?

    The short answer is “not much”. 

    Anyway…

    As to the refineries, if you were an enterprising terrorist, with bunch of Uncle Farooq’s 100 kg drone-planes, and you wanted to seriously threaten the world’s economy by igniting the plants … you have the problem of transporting the aforementioned drones to near the sites, then arming them, then programming them, then getting the heck out of Dodge as everything goes sideways. 

    Dozens of places on the planet. 

    That kind of reach is not even easy for a Superpower to do, let alone a bunch of Uncle Farooq’s nephews, no matter how well heeled they are. 

    And that is a GOOD THING.

    However, even a single successful out-of-the-Mideast-region attack … would have devastating effects on the financial markets. Talk about going sideways, quick. 

    Maybe that’s the end-game. 
    Financial Armageddon. 
    Could happen.

    Between the Chinese, the Indians, the Japanese, the Europeans and the US, we certainly have WAY overextended sovereign debt paper. Ridiculous amounts of it. Which the market DEMANDS remains liquid and sovereign. 

    Good luck to that.
    Just saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  40. Not really.

    The kind of drone used — no one in authority has claimed — was not a $100 Chinese toy; it might have been launched from a “fishing boat”, sure, but perhaps farther. Many kilometers nonetheless … and then impact a fairly potent bomb onto the refinery’s fragile-yet-important devices.

    I argue that a smallish winged ‘drone plane’ would have been used.

    • They move a hêll-of-a-lot faster than glorified toy helicopters.
    • They can, because of wings, carry a lot more warhead payload.
    • They can store a LOT more ‘juice’, travelling hundreds of kilometers.
    • They need not be very expensive, tho’ America’s are breathtakingly so.

    No: as many a home garage based radio-controlled model maker knows, you can build a remarkably competent ‘drone’ type craft out of styrofoam, fiberglass, aluminum and epoxy. Not hard at all. 

    As it is REALLY unlikely that the Houthis have mastered making 100 kg toting drones able to travel 100 km, and with adaptive (jaming-less) GPS-and-inertial guidance, … and because the Iranians have been sporting the very same of late, AND because Iran is precisely opposite the affected refinery on the Persian Gulf …

    Whaddya think.
    Iran or Houthis?
    Twenty bucks on the Iranians.
    I’d venture not getting better than 7 to 6 payout odds, either.

    Thing is … the styrofoam-and-fiberglass drones are vexingly EASY to ‘make stealthy’, too. 

    A real problem.
    Just saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  41. Yes… government can (and in the US, has) mandate against exportation of a critical resource. 

    That’s quite different from mandating that a foreign sovereign MUST deliver goods it cannot provide due to guerrilla drone attacks on its oil fields, terminals and refineries. 

    Just saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  42. not really, especially since they are being blamed for it. Even if they hadn’t been, they can’t sell more barrels than what the US allows. Sanctions.

  43. talking about putting the fear of God into the Establishment. Especially if it wasn’t Iranian. Some few dozen well placed droned explosives wheresabouts. It isn’t just oil. It’s petrochem – basically everything in the world touches it. Hit less than a dozen facilities around the world we we are back to the stone age. Go one step further and hit a couple of the big steel mills in China and Korea. You can’t restart those mills (side note – that is how US Steel’s problems during the 70’s oil crises created the market for zero coupon bonds, USS was bankrupt but couldn’t close the mills – national security issue).

  44. This foreshadows bad tidings for the future, anyone with a grudge can slap together a drone with assorted weapons and set it loose to seek their version of recompense. The barrier to entry for carnage gets lower and lower every year.

  45. Is there a practical difference between
    “import shortages” and “local shortages due to external demand pricing pressure(i.e., a lot of it is being exported)”?

  46. Tho’ it’d be a humungous investment, 

    № 1 – reestablishing the plethora of hard manufacturing businesses ceded to China would give the biggest bang-for-the-buck.

    № 2 -ensuring that we become COMPLETELY non-dependent on China for rare-earths magnets would be a top-priority investment. 

    № 3 – ensuring that we become lithium, copper, nickel, molybdenum, tungsten, vanadium, … independent is also top-priority. 

    If we get into a shooting war, we definitely want both huge stockpiles of these critical raw materials, AND the ability … working and functional … to get more. From our own dirt. From Canada, México, anyplace that we can establish a truly secure shipping channel with. 

    № 4 – divestment of sundries … to other eager, hungry producers. Shirts, clothes,, toiletries, shoes, plastics fab, LIGHT bulbs (for sure!), packaging, small and large tools, car parts, medical tools and consumables. 

    № 5 – Tooling manufacture & deep AI robotics. It is becoming obvious that we’re on the cusp of having “multiplicative investment” in these domains. Where investing $100 will create $100,000 in downstream value. Bring that back home.

    Anyway, Just saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  47. “what does that get you?” Umm… let’s see. Even tho’ the price is high, you HAVE oil-and-product, essentially without having to mothball much of your distillation-and-cracking line due to import shortages. Dunno… that sounds like a win, to me. 

    Sheesh.
    GoatGuy ✓

  48. “Thank God the USA is functionally oil independent”

    What does that get you? Prices are determined largely by sentiment and the oil futures market. The oil goes to the highest bidder, wherever they might be in the world.

  49. And Brian is most likely wrong depending on how badly damaged the facility is. If it is a write off then we have a global recession that does not tough a handul of countries. The facility hit ulgrades smSaudi oil from sour to sweet. So if it is a write off the world gains 7 mbbl/day of aour crude but loses 7 mbbl/day of sweet crude. If it is a write off every country whose refineries can hand sour (mainly the u.s. and rich asian countries) will make out like bandits while everyone else take it in the neck. A swing of 14% in global production quality will have a major impact. If it is a write off we are looking at years (3-10) before it gets replaced. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Abqaiq-Khurais_attack

  50. Good thing we really could drill our way to energy independence. I wonder what other dependencies we could end any time we wanted to?

  51. Yup, you can’t just shut down an oil refinery, and then start it again. They’re not built for that. A number of industrial processes are like that, if you have to shut them down, you’re a long, long time getting them going again.

  52. Iran and Saudi Arabia are already fighting 4 proxy wars in the Middle East. The Shia Houthi Rebels are Iranian backed. Look for the Saudis to respond.

    Thank God the USA is functionally oil independent. If it were not for fracking, we would be totally screwed.

  53. That implies they were actual large military grade drones, not a camera drone from China with a few kg of C4 on it and a good knowledge of infrastructure.

  54. It’s pretty good “news” for Iran, however, as the next major oil supplier in the region. I put “news” in quotes because they must have known about it before supplying the drones.
    Well, Yemen’s drone industry is…non-existent, and Iran has been building up theirs recently.
    The biggest impact might be from fear of a larger Iran-Saudi Arabia war. We’ll find out from the markets Monday…

  55. As I’ve often said, real life is usually less dramatic than imagination.

    Predict 20 exciting and dramatic events, a couple of them might come true, eventually. A number more will happen, but with far less damage and sudden collapse than proposed. For one thing because there will be many, many people working to stop dramatic disasters.

  56. Shows how vulnerable all refineries are to such attacks. This was one of the best protected in the world. A mass attack on many refineries could cause the world econmy problems. We need to look at how to better protect the refineries.

  57. Maybe it has something to do with the Israelis not targeting highly vulnerable and HIGHLY COMBUSTIBLE oil fields?
    I don’t know. Apples and oranges.
    Though, I’ve seen no evidence of them doing it with hundreds of strikes and achieving diddly squat. But, by all means, provide your sources.

  58. In particular… the oil complex was incapacitated … as it were … because the operators immediately shut down just about every production line process they could, to keep the fire from becoming an inferno. And such complex operations can NOT be restarted with a push of a button.  

    A whole lot of remediation now needs to happen.  

    • Pumps get jammed.
    • Catalysts poisoned.  
    • Cracking towers, coked. 
    • Overpressure relays tripped.
    • Real pipe damage. Must check entirely ‘by hand’. 
    • Distilling towers need internal wash-downs. 
    • Product in flow to be processed, needs to get back to the tanks.
    • Cleanup of the grounds. 
    • Securing equipment that fails, that isn’t “in stock” at the local hardware store.
    • Rerouting production anyway, around the sad-sack fails. 
    • Moving back into limping production.  
    • Repiering the freighters.  
    • Replacing all the use-once-and-swap fire-control equipment.
    • Dealing with the endless debugging of wires fried, cables pierced.

    And not to forget…

    • Setup of a FAR more secure anti-drone RADAR + antimissile apparatus
    • Training AND ‘wargaming’ to ensure crew is competent. 
    • Intelligence gathering from the scraps left behind…
    • Analysis of all other refineries in region… 

    The list goes on and on.
    Just saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  59. Well… The Saudis have been actively messing with Yemen for quite awhile now. I’d NOT go so far as to say they deserved it (its arguable…), but it certainly isn’t surprising. Thing is, that 5 million barrels of refining a DAY is a heck of a lot of product being made. Guess where much of that goes?

    Right… to ports all over the world that haven’t an infrastructure of indigenous oil refining themselves.  Places all over Africa. Convenient ports in the Mediterranean. Greece. Spain. Opportunity markets. Tanzania. Kenya. More southerly African ports of call.  

    Production will undoubtedly come back online fairly quickly. A lot of petrodollars are at stake. The U.S. has a very active ‘consulting engineering’ force over there already; they’ll wildcat a fix or three.

    Just saying,
    GoatGuy ✓

  60. I am sorry but this is hilarious! I can’t stop laughing.

    On one hand you have Israel launching “hundreds of strikes” on Syria using the most high tech US and Israeli weapons and achieving DIDDLY SQUAT. On the other hand some 3rd world sandal wearing rebels have succeeded in damaging 1/2 of Saudi Arabian oil supply!

    Time for Trump to sell another batch of Patriot missiles as the current batch seems highly ineffective! ROFLMAO!

  61. Open Source wins – Microsoft declares bankruptcy 2015-2020

    9.13.2019 MSFT Mkt cap 1.05T

    Death spiral taking longer than expected? 😉

  62. is there a simple and easy way to make trillion dollars/sec just by clicking a link, the drones caused an overpressure event leading to a discharge and ignition of product ,production had to be curtailed to enable maintenance and repair operations nothing to see here folks move along!

  63. They will not tell you how this happened in detail because that will enable replication. But basically you set the oil and gases on fire by hitting the right spot

  64. You just have to break a pipe and it’s down. Search the web for drones dropping 40mm grenades on people. I’m guessing it was something like that. Maybe Kamikaze drones with more explosives mounted on them?

  65. How? I would like a detail description of how one or more drones incapacitated an entire oil processing complex.

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