cryptogon.com

State energy producer Saudi Aramco lost about 5.7 million barrels per day of output after 10 unmanned aerial vehicles on Saturday struck the world’s biggest crude-processing facility in Abqaiq and the kingdom’s second-biggest oil field in Khurais, the company said.

Aramco would need weeks to restore full production capacity to a normal level, according to people familiar with the matter. The producer however can restore significant volume of oil production within days, they said. Aramco could consider declaring force majeure on some international shipments if the resumption of full capacity at Abqaiq takes weeks, they said.

The attack will likely rattle oil markets and cast a shadow on Aramco’s preparations for what could be the world’s biggest stake sale. It’s also set to escalate a showdown pitting Saudi Arabia and the U.S. against Iran, which backs proxy groups from Yemen to Iran and Lebanon.

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Saudi Aramco, which pumped about 9.8 million barrels a day in August, will be able to keep customers supplied for several weeks by drawing on a global storage network.

The Saudis hold millions of barrels in tanks in the kingdom itself, plus three strategic locations around the world: Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Okinawa in Japan, and Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.

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For the global oil market, the 5.7 million barrels a day outage is the worst single and sudden supply disruption ever, surpassing the loss of Kuwaiti and Iraqi petroleum supply in August 1990, and the loss of Iranian oil output in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, according to data from the U.S. Energy Department.