Houthi missiles and drones halt work at Saudi energy sites and wound 73

Yemen’s Houthi movement fired drones and ballistic missiles at energy and civilian sites in four southern Saudi cities on Tuesday, wounding 73 people and forcing a temporary halt at some of the kingdom’s oil and power facilities.

The Saudi Ministry of Energy said fires broke out at several locations and that specialised teams were containing the blazes and assessing damage. Operations at some installations were stopped while that work went on. The ministry did not publish a barrel-by-barrel loss figure.

Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition that has fought in Yemen for more than a decade, said the strikes hit “civilian and economic sites” in Abha, Khamis Mushait, Jazan and Najran. He said women and children were among the wounded. The foreign ministry in Riyadh said the kingdom would “take all necessary measures to defend its sovereignty” and demanded an end to attacks on Saudi territory and on tankers in the Red Sea.

What the Houthis said they hit

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree described a “large-scale military operation” against Saudi Aramco sites in Abha, Najran and Jazan and against an air base at Khamis Mushait. Houthi television later added Taif to the list of claimed military targets. Saba, the Houthi-run news agency, had flagged a statement on a “large-scale” operation earlier in the morning.

Jazan matters more than the other three cities for the oil market. The industrial city on the Red Sea holds a 400,000-barrel-a-day refinery, one of Aramco’s largest, plus associated storage and power plant equipment. The Financial Times reported on Monday that earlier Houthi fire had already hit Jazan facilities. People familiar with Tuesday’s damage told the Wall Street Journal that gas and oil storage at an Abha power plant was struck and that the Jazan refinery was left aflame and offline. Output there had already been cut by previous attacks.

Aramco itself had not issued a public damage statement by late Tuesday. Chief executive Amin Nasser said last month that earlier interruptions had no material operational or financial effect on the company. That claim is now being tested against a second wave in two days and against a market that is already short of Gulf barrels.

A second front beside Hormuz

The strikes land on a market that has been living with a shut or tightly restricted Strait of Hormuz since the United States and Israel opened a war with Iran in late February. About a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil normally moves through that strait. Saudi Arabia has already been pushing more crude toward Red Sea terminals to avoid the Gulf. Houthi fire on Jazan and on Red Sea shipping now threatens the alternative route as well.

Brent crude traded near $99 a barrel in early Tuesday dealing, according to the Financial Times, after sitting in the high $90s through the previous session. India’s Sensex fell 555 points the same day as traders priced higher crude and Gulf risk together. The Houthi campaign also sits beside a renewed fight inside Yemen. Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government forces have been trying to retake territory after a four-year truce broke down in recent weeks.

Al-Maliki said coalition forces would take “all necessary operational measures” against the source of the threat. That language has historically meant air strikes on launch sites in Saada and Hodeidah and on command nodes in Sanaa. Whether Riyadh now widens that campaign, and whether Iran supplies the Houthis with more accurate missiles while it is itself under US and Israeli fire, will decide if this remains a border war or becomes a second energy front.

What is still unknown

Saudi officials have not released a breakdown of the 73 wounded by city or by facility. They have not said how many drones were intercepted. They have not said when Jazan or the Abha plant will restart. Those three numbers will move oil prices more than any statement of resolve.

The Houthis have attacked Abha airport and southern Saudi cities before, including during the 2015-2022 war. Tuesday’s combination of a high civilian casualty count and confirmed fires at energy sites is larger than most of those earlier raids. It is also the first time in this round that Riyadh has used the phrase “dangerous escalation” in an energy ministry note.

For buyers who depend on Saudi grades, the immediate question is spare capacity on the Red Sea and whether insurance premia on Jazan-bound hulls rise again. For Yemen, the question is whether a Saudi retaliation hits the same launch belts that have already been struck for a decade, or whether the war that restarted inside Yemen now pulls the kingdom back into a full campaign it spent years trying to leave.