الحوثيون يدّعون استهداف منشأة لأرامكو في الرياض مع تصاعد القتال في اليمن

Despite reports of surging oil flows out of the Strait of Hormuz, tensions in the Middle East remain high as the fresh Saudi-Houthi escalation threatens to unravel recent success in restoring oil exports.

This weekend, the Iran-aligned Houthis claimed a missile and drone attack on a facility of Saudi Aramco in Riyadh, the Saudi capital city.

However, the Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s internationally recognized government said that the Houthi claim is “misleading”.

The Iran-aligned rebels are “attempting to divert attention from the scale of the losses and the growing public anger against them,” the coalition official spokesman, Major General Turki Al-Malki, told Saudi outlet Asharq Al-Awsat, adding that the Houthis have “ties to external agendas that have brought chaos and devastation to Yemen.”

Then on Sunday, Yemen’s internationally recognized government announced the start of military operations to reclaim all the territory currently held by the Houthis.

The Iran-aligned group has held the capital Sanaa for more than a decade and holds most of Yemen’s western coast lying on the strategically important Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which links the Red Sea and the Suez Canal with the Gulf of Aden and the shortest route from Europe to Asia.

Intensified fighting in Yemen between Saudi-led forces and Iran-backed Houthis could raise the threats to the shipments to and from the Red Sea, which have already been disrupted by the Houthi threats not to allow Saudi-linked vessels to move through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Saudi Arabia has just restarted crude oil loadings at the Yanbu port on the Red Sea after the East-West pipeline resumed partial service following attacks in September that had damaged pumping stations.

The Saudi escape route away from the Strait of Hormuz is operational again, but the Houthi threat at Bab el-Mandeb could increase the delivery time for Saudi crude in Asia by about a month as many vessels have opted for the much longer route north through the Suez Canal, then west in the Mediterranean and down south around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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