Half of Saudi oil output offline after drone strikes

The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation is reporting another ship has been seized in the gulf. Correspondent Amochai Stein said on Twitter: “Iran has seized another oil vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's Revolutionary Guard arrests a vessel and 11 crew on 'diesel smuggling charges'."

https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...nker-Strait-of-Hormuz-gulf-saudi-arabia-uk-us

Probably Thump's fault.

Looks like the shtf with Iran may not be too far off.

Nobody's really worried about Iran. Trump will bebest buddies with them within six weeks.
Nervous Nellies in the futures market make me lol.

This is exactly why they hired me to be an instructor for air defense. The Stinger missile is good for:
Cruise missiles, check.
Drones, check.
If it flies, it dies.
Stinger coming back with a vengeance!

Looks like Trump is waiting on direction from Saudi Arabia:

“Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!”

Adam Bates said it best in regards to that:

"If Obama had said he was waiting for instructions from Saudi Arabia before he decided whether to attack another country, every Republican in America's eyeballs would have flown right out of their head.

We would have heard the sound of 50 million eyeballs landing on the ground at once. We would today refer to it as The Great Eyeballening of 2014."

Personally, I'm glad he's not flying off the handle and starting a war right off the bat but I find it funny that he's openly deferring to the House of Saud and getting a pass for it from so many who derided the Saudi's in the past and collectively lost their sh%t when Obama bowed to them.

It just so happens they are holding a national election tomorrow in Israel and Netanyahu is in trouble.
https://www.apnews.com/406222b9f6f5440f85b9cac2a2294a25

I'm not saying there is any connection mind you, it's all serendipity, that's all.

Nothing says we can't defend the House of Saud and the Israelis at the same time, while negotiating a deal with Iran.

OPEC, Russia Hold Off Pumping More Oil After Saudi Attack
Saudi Arabia will tap into stocks, officials say, as they worry fellow OPEC members might overproduce
By
Benoit Faucon in London,
Summer Said in Dubai and
Georgi Kantchev in Moscow
Updated Sept. 16, 2019 6:10 pm ET

OPEC and Russia are so far holding off pumping more oil to fill potential gaps in global supplies after an attack in Saudi Arabia over the weekend led to a major crude disruption, officials said.

Crude prices surged on Monday in the aftermath of a weekend attack on Saudi Arabia’s crude production infrastructure. Officials said the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Aramco, aimed to restore about a third of the disrupted output by day’s end on Monday.


Saudi Arabia held a series of calls with cartel members and other oil-producing allies over the weekend and told producers that they wouldn’t need to respond with additional output, Saudi and OPEC officials said. Saudi energy officials fear that other members might begin pumping too much and take away some of the kingdom’s market share, Saudi oil officials and advisers said. Saudi officials told cartel members that the kingdom would mitigate the outage by tapping into its reserves, the Saudi and OPEC officials said.

The strikes knocked out 5.7 million barrels of daily production, about half of Saudi capacity. One of the main targets of the attack was a large crude-processing plant in Abqaiq—the largest of its kind in the world.


Meanwhile, the attacks also targeted the Khurais oil field. According to early damage reports, four of five processing lines at were damaged, people familiar with the matter said. Each line has the daily capacity of some 300,000 barrels of crude.

At Abqaiq, at least two of seven stabilization facilities were severely damaged and have to be rebuilt, which could take months. Three others were hit. The units process crude to make it safe to ship. Ten of 18 of the plant’s desulphurization towers were hit, too, though it was unclear how badly. The towers reduce the sulphur content of Saudi’s heavier crudes.

“There are units that were completely destroyed and have to be rebuilt,” one Aramco executive said.

Still, Sara Vakhshouri, president of Washington, D.C., consulting firm SVB Energy International, said, “The Kingdom has enough domestic crude oil inventories to cover its production suspension of 5.7 (million barrels a day) for almost 30 days.”

President Trump provided some relief late Sunday by authorizing the release of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve if needed to stabilize energy markets. The president also said he had “informed all appropriate agencies to expedite approvals of the oil pipelines currently in the permitting process in Texas and various other States.”

Mohammed Barkindo, the secretary-general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, ruled out an emergency meeting after speaking to the International Energy Agency and officials in Saudi Arabia, OPEC officials said.

Russia, a key participant in an OPEC-led agreement to cut production, also doesn’t see the need for emergency measures, according to statements Monday from Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak.

“Right now there is a fairly large amount of reserves in the world” to compensate for the decline in Saudi output, Mr. Novak was quoted as saying by Russian newswire Interfax. “There is no need to take some sort of extra urgent [measures],” he said.

0:00 / 3:21


Saudi Oil Attacks to Be Felt From California to China

The strikes on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure have led to a production shutdown on a scale the world hasn’t seen for decades. It could have long-lasting consequences for global markets and politics. Photo: Reuters
The cautious global response comes after Saudi Arabia assured OPEC and Russia that its ability to meet demand was under control, according to Saudi and OPEC officials. The kingdom is concerned producers such as Iraq and Nigeria, which were recently persuaded to comply with OPEC’s production cuts, may now renege on their plans, said a Saudi oil adviser.

“They don’t want others to come out of the box. Otherwise they won’t come back in,” said the adviser.

Saudi officials said they still believe they can fully replace its sidelined production in coming days. That would require tapping oil inventories and using other facilities to process crude.

SMS said:

Looks like Trump is waiting on direction from Saudi Arabia:
Personally, I'm glad he's not flying off the handle and starting a war right off the bat but I find it funny that he's openly deferring to the House of Saud and getting a pass for it from so many who derided the Saudi's in the past and collectively lost their sh%t when Obama bowed to them.

Click to expand...

Deferring to the house of saud? Bullcrap. There are American investigators on the ground right now gaining evidence to support the Iranian weapons were used.
We have an embargo against them now that some countries like France has ignored. How is it wrong to not jump in haphazardly without a coalition of nations to take them down with full support of all nations using economic sanctions?
I don't want to see another American life lost over there yet you seem to be a hawk here and want him to immediately respond like Clinton did which had zero effect on anything.
I'm sure it wasn't on the news feeds you watch, but Trump did respond when the US Drone was shot down, but not in a military way. He allowed a cyber strike on the Iranians that they still haven't recovered from.
I'm betting a steak dinner with you that there will be a measured and deep strike of some sort if the investigators can confirm the Iranians proxied or performed the strike in the name of the Yemen rebels. I pay up my bets if I"m wrong. JD8 can back that up. I lost one to him.