Saudi Arabia confirmed attacks against its oil and gas facilities, including the crucial East-West Pipeline, state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported, citing an anonymous official from the Ministry of Energy.
The report dated Thursday did not say when the attacks took place but it said one Saudi national was killed and seven others wounded.
The SPA report indicated recent attacks on the kingdom’s energy infrastructure have had a significant impact on both the production and transport of oil, affecting more than one million barrels a day.
Attacks on the East-West Pipeline have lead to the loss of approximately 700,000 barrels per day while other infrastructure attacks have reduced capacity by a further 600,000 barrels per day, SPA said.
“That would bring the regional total of supply impacted to 12.1 million bpd (barrels per day),” Amena Bakr, an analyst at data intelligence and analytics platform Kpler, told CNN, referring to the overall impact across the Gulf region.
Gulf nations have mostly remained tight-lipped in recent weeks on exactly how much damage has been wrought on their oil and gas producing facilities by Iran’s attacks.
Bakr added that the East-West Pipeline “has been key to bypassing” the blocked Strait of Hormuz.
“Moreover we are not seeing any improvement with regards to flows via Hormuz,” she added.
CNN previously reported that satellite imagery provided by the European Space Agency showed fire and large plumes of thick black smoke rising from Saudi Aramco’s vital Abqaiq processing facility following reports of an Iranian attack Wednesday. The cause of the fire seen in the satellite image was not immediately clear.
The image was taken on April 8 at around 10:00am local time (03:00am ET) just hours after President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran.
Saudi Aramco’s Abqaiq facility, located in eastern Saudi Arabia, is the world’s largest crude stabilization plant and provides around 5% of global oil supplies, according to the company. The facility is a starting point for the East-West Pipeline.
The 1,200 kilometer pipeline is one of two in the region that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, where the war in Iran has caused significant trade disruption.
CNN has reached out to Saudi Aramco for comment.
