Oil Prices Up 15% After Saudi Aramco Attack, Output Down 5.7M Barrels Per Day

Oil prices jumped more than 15 percent after Saturday’s drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities that snuffed out more than 50 percent of its production capacity and 5 percent of the global oil supply.

The zoomed prices are the highest since May. On Sunday Brent crude futures even surged more than 19 percent on a session high at $71.95 a barrel.

The U.S. crude futures surged more than 15 percent to $63.34 a barrel.

According to Saudi Arabia news, 10 drones took part in the attack on the Abqaiq processing plant and the Khurais oilfield early on Saturday.

Saud's state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco updated that the attack reduced output by 5.7 million barrels a day.

There is no word when Aramco would resume production. According to insiders, the return to full oil capacity will take “weeks.”

The attack came when the oil company was readying for the world’s biggest share sale.

However, oil price news noted a broad price rise was checked by the timely statement of U.S. President Donald Trump that he would order the release of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) if required.

“Saudi authorities have claimed to control the fires, but this falls far short of extinguishing them,” said Abhishek Kumar, head of analytics at Interfax Energy in London.

Kumar noted that the damage to the attacked facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais looked extensive and it would take weeks before oil supplies get normal.

Iran blames the US for dragging its name

Meanwhile, Iran expressed resentment at being labeled as a “real attacker” and accused the U.S of “deceit”, according to Iran news.

Iran’s foreign minister hit out at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for blaming Tehran for the drone attacks on two Saudi oil facilities.

In a Twitter post, Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif slammed the US secretary of state, saying that “having failed at max pressure, Sec Pompeo's turning to max deceit.”

Zarif said: “Blaming Iran won't end the disaster” in Yemen.

Pompeo had doubted claims made by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels that they carried out the drone attacks.

According to a BBC report, skeptics are ruling out a Yemeni rebel attack since the distance from the Yemen border to the Khurais oilfield is about 770km, far beyond the range of the Houthi attack drone Qatef-1.

They suspect a cruise missile attack. However, some UN investigators pointed out the arrival of a new Houthi drone, the UAV-X having an average range of 1,500km.

Houthi rebels had been fighting a Saudi-led and Western-backed coalition that ousted Yemen's president in 2015 per Yemen news.

The U.S has previously accused Iran’s hand in the attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf in June although Tehran rejected them as “wild allegations.”