Shockingly bad news
Satellite images from Nasa and Esa showed several huge black plumes of smoke that stretched up to 150 kilometers over Saudi Arabia.
Ten drones are said to have carried out the attack on the largest oil refinery in the country. Oil production in the kingdom has plummeted – to around 5.7 million barrels. That is half of the usual funding volume, reports the state-owned Saudi news agency SPA. The production of liquid gas was also affected. However, the loss of production can be compensated for by stocks. However, experts assume that oil production will be disrupted for a long time to come. Until full normalization "it can take months", said two people close to the state oil company Aramco of the news agency Reuters.
Who is responsible for the attack?
The Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack. A Houthi military spokesman described the attack as "legitimate answer" on Saudi Arabia’s ongoing military campaign in Yemen. The Arab Kingdom leads a US-backed military coalition in Yemen that is fighting the Houthis. These in turn are supported by Iran and keep large parts of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, under control. Further threats from the rebels followed on Monday: "We assure the Saudi regime that our long arm can reach any place we want at the time we choose"said a spokesman. He also warned companies and foreigners not to stay in the bombed oil plants, as they could be hit at any time.
What reason do the rebels in Yemen have to attack a Saudi oil plant?
Iran and Saudi Arabia have been waging a proxy war since 2015. Saudi Arabia leads a military alliance – including the US – which is fighting the Houthis in Yemen with air strikes, among other things. The Saudis see the rebels as a close ally of their arch rival Iran. The Houthis have carried out several drone and rocket attacks on cities, airports and oil plants in Saudi Arabia in the past, but most of them have been intercepted. Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of supplying the Houthis with weapons. This is always denied by both Iran and the rebels.
Are there any doubts about what the Houthi said?
The US thinks another attacker is more likely: The air strikes are said to have been carried out from Iran or Iraq rather than from Yemen. Satellite images are said to show that the attacks were caused from the north or northwest, the reported "The New York Times" after a background interview with US government officials. This is more in line with attacks from the northern Persian Gulf, i.e. Iraq or Iran, than from the southern Yemen. Not only ten, but at least 17 impacts should be recognizable, which would contradict the information provided by the Houthi rebels.
The Saudi government said on Monday that the weapons for the attack were coming from Iran. In addition, the combination of many drones and missiles indicates a degree of precision, finesse and scope that goes beyond the capabilities of the rebels alone, the paper quoted a US government official as saying.
Iran promptly and vehemently denied the allegations. Pompeo’s allegations are absurd, inexplicable and therefore also baseless and ineffective, said the Iranian Foreign Office spokesman Abbas Mousavi to the Iranian news agency Isna. What is happening in Yemen is the resistance of the Yemenis against the war crimes of the military coalition led by the Saudis."Because the US policy of maximum pressure on Iran has failed, the Americans have now switched to that of maximum lies."
How are the other states reacting to the attacks?
The US is in attack mode after the drone attacks. US President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter that they are now waiting to find out who Saudi Arabia is blaming for the attacks. Trump threatened the authors with a reprisal.
Other states, on the other hand, reacted more prudently: British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab condemned the attacks on the Saudi Arabian refineries sharply, but urged patience with blame and reactions. "The picture is not clear on the question of responsibility"said Raab on Monday. Reactions would have to take place on an international level, but first all the facts were on the table. "It is a very serious, monstrous act, and we must respond to it clearly and as unitedly as possible internationally."
The German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas fears that the attacks will worsen the situation in the region. "I condemn these attacks"said the SPD politician on Monday in Berlin. The situation is difficult enough as it is. De-escalation is necessary. "The situation is extremely worrying." Together with its allies, Germany is analyzing who is responsible for the crimes.
The EU also called the attacks one "Threat to regional security". The UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, warned of an escalation on the Arabian Peninsula.https://123helpme.me/argumentative-essay/ Such incidents would jeopardize the United Nations-led political process in Yemen. The UN describes the war in Yemen as currently the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the world. The Kremlin spoke of one "alarming event". Something like this does not help to stabilize the energy market, said spokesman Dmitri Peskow of the newspaper "Vedomosti". The prominent Russian foreign politician, Konstantin Kosachev, warned against holding Iran responsible. "There is no reason to blame Tehran on this one"he wrote on Facebook. For Washington, Iran is responsible for everything bad in the Middle East.
Is there a threat of a military conflict between the USA and Iran?
The region in the Gulf has been a powder keg for many years. The war in Yemen in particular is a constant focus. The fact that the US has identified Iran as the aggressor in the region further exacerbates the conflicts. In the past few months there have been several trouble spots. The US blamed Iran after several foreign oil tankers were attacked in the region. The Iranian leadership is also said to have shot down a US drone there.
Time and again, a war on the Arabian Peninsula was on the verge of breaking out. So now: Trump openly threatened Iran on Twitter. The US waited "with a loaded gun on the confirmation"wrote the US President. Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo also openly attacked Iran: "Amid all appeals for de-escalation, Iran has launched an unprecedented attack on global energy supplies".
But the US cannot really want a war. The reason: the upcoming US presidential election campaign. Trump had repeatedly announced that he would withdraw US soldiers from the Middle East. A more open military conflict would cost him many votes. Iran, too, is actually not prepared for a war against the USA. The head of the Air Force of the Revolutionary Guard, Amirali Hadschisadeh, said, according to the semi-state news agency Tasnim, that Iran was ready for war. But that has to be doubted – Tehran would have little to oppose the US troops militarily.
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It is more likely that the US will launch targeted attacks on Iranian military positions. Trump had already reacted in Syria in April 2018 when the Syrian regime under Assad is said to have used poison gas against its own population. At that time, Syrian military installations were the target of hundreds of US missiles.
Sources used: news agencies dpa, Reuters, AFP
The weekend’s drone strikes show how shockingly vulnerable oil production in the Gulf is. If the oil remains expensive, Germany would also be affected.
The markets reacted immediately: no sooner had Saudi Arabia announced that it would have to cut its oil production in half after the drone attacks on its most important oil factory in the northeast of the country than the oil price rose by more than 20 percent. Over $ 77 was paid for a barrel of crude oil from the region at short notice. The last time such an increase occurred 30 years ago with the start of the Kuwait crisis.
Shockingly bad news
It does not have to stay like this. The oil market is prone to excessive reactions. The price went down again on Monday afternoon. But for the global economy, the surprising vulnerability of the Saudi oil industry is shockingly bad news. If a few drones from a rebel army can cause such damage – what will happen when states compete against each other in open combat? If the oil price rises sustainably, the industrialized and emerging countries suffer in particular. They need the fossil raw material for their industrial products and still for transportation.
Attack on an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia: These satellite images show the facility
Photo series with 5 pictures
It is not yet clear how severely and persistently the oil industry in Saudi Arabia is actually affected. But political tensions in the region are growing, and the conflict between Iran and the USA is escalating. Yemeni Houthi rebels claim they are solely responsible for the attack. Nobody knows who helped them send the drones off and where the missiles took off from. It is not entirely likely that the rebels could have sent them 1,000 kilometers overland in order to then steer them precisely to their destination.
The US government considers Iran to be the mastermind behind the action, allied with the rebels. Americans do not believe that the Houthis are capable of carrying out such complex attacks without outside help. US President Donald Trump threatens a military counter-attack. This verbal lack of compromise, combined with actual military reluctance, could further destabilize the Arabian Peninsula and drive oil prices up.
How reliable is Saudi Arabia as the largest oil exporter?
However, there is an opposite trend that has recently been weighted more heavily than the political upheavals in the Gulf region: the slowdown in the global economy and the looming recession. They curb oil consumption and keep prices at a comparatively low level. Even if Saudi Arabian oil production were only half as high as usual for weeks, prices would likely only rise moderately. The warehouses in the USA, Europe and China are so well stocked that delivery shortfalls can be easily compensated for at short notice. It looks different if the repair work would take months. Then the question of Saudi Arabia’s reliability as the world’s largest oil exporter would arise.
The attack hit the state oil company Aramco at an inopportune time. Just last week, the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman fired the country’s most experienced oil manager. Khalid al-Falih, previously energy minister and chairman of the board at Aramco, had to leave because he had become too independent for the ruling house. Now the oil sector is managed by family members who, according to oil market experts, have too little experience and too little business knowledge.
And too little authority in the organization of the oil exporting countries OPEC. Here al-Falih played the crucial role of mediator when the conflicting interests of the warring Arab states brought the cartel to the brink of collapse. How it continues here is completely open.
High oil prices could also hit the German economy
Germany does not have to fear a bottleneck – it hardly ever buys oil from Saudi Arabia. At the petrol stations, the price initially rose by an average of just one cent. As early as Monday afternoon, the signs were again on the all-clear. But heating oil prices rose significantly. At the beginning of this week, around 130 euros more had to be paid for 3,000 liters of light heating oil than on Friday.
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If the oil from the Gulf region remains expensive in the coming months, it will also affect the German economy: because permanently higher oil prices act like an extra tax. They tie up purchasing power. For a country on the brink of recession, this is not good news.
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