Saudi Arabia has shut down a key oil pipeline, blaming militants in Iraq for drone attacks on an export route used to bypass the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz.
Since the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran, the world’s largest crude oil exporter has increased use of a 745-mile (1,200 km) pipeline across the Arabian Peninsula that connects Abqaiq, near the Persian Gulf, to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry condemned “the targeting of the East-West Pipeline in the Riyadh and Madinah regions by several drones originating from Iraq, resulting in injury and damage.”
Earlier, an Energy Ministry spokesman told news agency SPA that the pipeline had been “stopped as a precautionary measure.”
Baghdad is under growing pressure to stop militant groups, including those backed by Saudi Arabia’s regional rival Iran, from launching attacks on Gulf states from Iraq.
US President Donald Trump said he believed Tehran was responsible for the air attack. “I think so, maybe so,” Trump told reporters in Dublin during a visit to Ireland.
On Saturday, the Iraqi government confirmed the attacks were carried out from its territory and ordered an investigation. He condemned “attacks on our brothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s office said the commander of the southern province of Maysan had been fired.
Copernicus Sentinel Data satellite images taken on Thursday showed black smoke billowing near Medina, along the general route of the East-West pipeline.
Saudi oil exports through the Red Sea port at the end of the pipeline have more than doubled since the start of the war, according to the International Energy Agency.
The news comes as Yemen’s Houthi forces seized the strategic island of Perim in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, expanding their control over the narrow waterway, one of the world’s vital shipping routes linking Europe and Asia.
Oil prices topped $100 (£74) a barrel this week and average US diesel prices topped $6 for the first time on Friday – a potential headache for Trump ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The failed US and Israeli attempt to overthrow the Iranian regime this year has destabilized the Persian Gulf, and Iran and its proxies have now tightened control over two crucial shipping routes, the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea.
On Saturday, Trump said everything would “be fine” when asked if he could help move traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in light of new concerns about Saudi Arabia.
“Everything will be fine,” Trump said in Dublin after meeting with Irish President Catherine Connolly.
But Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking on the sidelines of the BRICS emerging markets summit in India, said the Middle East does not need the US to be the “regional policeman.”
Saudi Arabia has previously blamed Tehran-backed Iraqi militias for attacks on its oil infrastructure. It said the kingdom “reserves the right to take all necessary measures to protect its sovereignty, its security, its facilities” and its people.
Bahrain, Jordan and Qatar also condemned the attack on the Saudi pipeline, while the Gulf Cooperation Council condemned the “dangerous escalation and unacceptable threat to the security of the Kingdom.”
Iran-backed Houthi rebels announced in July a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia supporting Yemen’s government by attacking its oil tankers in the Red Sea.
After taking control of Yemen’s Red Sea coast on Friday, the Houthis said shipping through the Bab al-Mandab strait was “safe” for everyone except Saudi Arabia.