Houthis claim drone attack on Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery

Published 09 Aug, 2026 03:24pm 2 min read

Yemen’s Houthis said they ‌had attacked Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery on Sunday, two days after the kingdom signed a defence pact with Turkey and Pakistan.

The Saudi energy ministry said a fire had broken out at the refinery that was later extinguished, without saying what ​caused the fire.

It said the relevant authorities were completing procedures to deal with the ​incident, which processes 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day in southwestern Saudi Arabia. ⁠No injuries were reported, it added.

The Houthis targeted the refinery with a drone, military spokesperson Yahay Saree ​posted on X.

They had struck Aramco sites before in Jazan and Yanbu on the Red Sea.

Iran ​and its allied groups have been firing on Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, and blockading their energy shipments, since the US and Israel attacked it on February 28 in a major escalation after years of ​regional tumult.

Aramco chief Amin Nasser said last week that recent attacks on the company’s facilities, the world’s top ​oil exporter, had caused some production interruptions but that he was confident operations could be restored quickly.

He said ‌the attacks ⁠had no material operational or financial impact.

On July 27, Aramco shut ​the refinery ⁠in Jazan, which nears the border with Yemen, after an attack by Houthi militants damaged the plant’s Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) complex and tank farm area, according to a note from consultancy IIR seen by Reuters.

The refinery also ⁠produces ​gasoline and ultra-light sulfur diesel.

The Houthis declared a naval blockade against ​the kingdom in the Red Sea last month in response to what they described as a Saudi siege of Yemen, an ​allegation Riyadh denies.

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