New attacks in Hormuz and Saudi Arabia are testing nerves across the Middle East and threatening to deepen the wartime disruption to global energy supplies, after a strike on a Saudi oil pipeline and an advance by Yemen’s Houthis raised fears of further shortages.
Oil traders were expecting prices to rise again when markets reopen on Monday, following weekend developments that jeopardise supplies from the world’s biggest exporter, Saudi Arabia.
In the latest incidents in the Gulf, the British maritime security agency UKMTO said on Sunday that a vessel had been struck by a projectile as it moved through the Strait of Hormuz, causing a fire and forcing the crew to be evacuated. Iran, for its part, said one person was killed and four crew wounded aboard an Iranian commercial vessel struck off its coast.
In Saudi Arabia, state media released video of damage to homes and a mosque from the purported latest cross-border attack by the Houthis in Jazan province in the south. The Houthis claimed separately to have struck a Saudi military base in a neighbouring province.
Southern Saudi cities have experienced regular alerts since last week, culminating in drone strikes on Friday that knocked out the 1,200-km (745-mile) east-west pipeline across the Arabian Peninsula that has served as the main route for global supplies of Middle East oil bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. That same day, the Houthis captured Perim Island, which lies in the middle of the Bab El-Mandeb, the “Gate of Tears” strait that controls the mouth of the Red Sea.
Oil prices surged above $100 last week for the first time since July. The politically sensitive retail price of diesel fuel in the United States rose on Sunday to another all-time high above $6.20 a gallon.
Traders and Saudi oil buyers told Reuters on Sunday that Riyadh has enough oil stored at its Red Sea port of Yanbu to maintain exports for just five to seven days if the pipeline struck on Friday remains shut. After that, as much as 4% of global oil supply could be jeopardised, on top of the millions of barrels a day already lost to the disruption to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia has not given full details of the extent of damage to the pipeline or said how long it will remain offline. Sources that spoke to Reuters have given conflicting estimates for the time needed to fix it, ranging from days to weeks. Satellite images have shown huge columns of smoke from locations along the pipeline.
After a month of quiet in August when flows of Middle East oil trickled back up, the past two weeks have seen a steady escalation in the war that the United States and Israel launched six months ago. No talks to end the war have been held since an interim agreement in June collapsed after a few weeks.
In a rare diplomatic initiative, Iranian officials say they will be attending a meeting on Monday with Gulf Arab states in Oman to present an agreement they say has been reached with Oman governing future shipping routes through the strait. But few details have been released. Oman has not publicly announced the meeting or confirmed any agreement, and most Gulf states have remained silent. Iraq said it would send a delegation. Bahrain said it would not meet with any Iranians. A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Saturday the meeting would discuss Hormuz and other issues, but would probably not yield a signed agreement to reopen the strait.
In an interview with London-based pan-Arab news outlet Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said despite any agreement with Oman, Iran would not reopen the strait until the United States satisfies Tehran’s demands.
The U.S. has so far failed to achieve the objectives President Donald Trump set out when he launched “Operation Epic Fury” in February: to end Iran’s nuclear programme, prevent it from being able to attack its neighbours and create conditions for its people to topple their rulers. Iran, having withstood the superpower onslaught, now presents Washington with a new dilemma as Houthi advances compound the crisis. The coming days will show whether diplomacy in Oman can cool a conflict that keeps spreading.
Source: ARY News