Oil prices remained elevated Wednesday, amid increasing attacks on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and an escalation of fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, an Iran-backed militia.<\/p>\n
The Houthis, emboldened by regional instability, late Tuesday struck a building owned by state-owned energy giant Saudi Aramco, the kingdom\u2019s Energy Ministry said, as Saudi and Houthi forces traded attacks. Saudi Arabia, one of the world\u2019s most important energy suppliers, has bombed Houthi positions in Yemen in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government, which is fighting to retake territory seized by the Houthis.<\/p>\n
At the same time, more ships were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz in the past week than in the entire month of September. More than 100 ships have been struck since the start of the war in Iran, now in its eighth month.<\/p>\n
In Saudi Arabia, the Houthis over the weekend carried out the deadliest attack on the kingdom in more than a decade, striking King Khalid International Airport and killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 300.<\/p>\n
The Houthi assault on the headquarters of Saudi Aramco, in Dhahran in the east of the kingdom on Tuesday, resulted in no casualties or injuries but caused a \u201climited fire,\u201d Saudi authorities said.<\/p>\n
The strike damaged the office tower\u2019s top three floors, according to two people with knowledge of the impact who spoke on condition of anonymity. No oil production or export infrastructure was damaged in the attack.<\/p>\n
The global oil benchmark, Brent crude, was trading about 1% higher Wednesday, a relatively modest rise that pushed the price above $106 a barrel. The global price was just less than $70 a barrel on the eve of the war in late February.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the attack did not impact oil operations, the market did not react,\u201d said Amena Bakr, head of Middle East & OPEC+ Insights at Kpler, a maritime data firm.<\/p>\n
Saudi Aramco is the world\u2019s largest oil producer, and its headquarters \u2014 as well as a large residential community of employees \u2014 has been in Dhahran for about 90 years. From there, the company manages its vast network of onshore and offshore oil rigs, pipelines, refineries, and export terminals.<\/p>\n
The strike on Aramco\u2019s nerve center came during the third day of the WPC Energy Congress, a weeklong oil and gas summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The conference went forward as planned Wednesday, with panel discussions on topics such as the future of hydrogen and the outlook for natural gas.<\/p>\n
But most of the prominent attendees canceled their trips to Riyadh, including the CEOs of BP, Exxon, Shell, Chevron, and TotalEnergies.<\/p>\n
More oil has been getting out of the region to global customers in the past several weeks, in large part because U.S. military forces have been guiding and protecting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast, opposite the strait from Iran.<\/p>\n
In addition, Saudi Arabia is exporting from both of its coasts again, weeks after it was forced to reduce its Red Sea exports when a drone hit Saudi Arabia\u2019s critical East-West pipeline in September.<\/p>\n
In a report Wednesday, the International Energy Agency said that Saudi Arabia and other crude oil producers in the Persian Gulf exported 13.9 million barrels per day last month, or 75% of prewar levels.<\/p>\n
The rebound in exports from the region helped push up the global supply of oil. But the agency said it left its projections for global supply for the rest of the year mostly the same because of the uncertainty caused by this month\u2019s \u201cheightened security concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n