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Iran attacks Saudi oil production

Wally Fairway

By Wally Fairway
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Wally Fairway

Wally Fairway 5600

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I know it's in the Oil barons thread, but I'm thinking this might just affect more than oil production.
Like, starting a shooting war (or infrastructure war - taking out power, communications, etc by electronic means)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49703143

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Saudi Arabia has cut oil and gas production following drone attacks on two major oil facilities run by state-owned company Aramco.

Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said the strikes had reduced crude oil production by 5.7m barrels a day - about half the kingdom's output.

A Yemeni Houthi rebel spokesman said it had deployed 10 drones in the attacks.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed the attacks on Iran saying there was no evidence they came from Yemen.

 

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atomheartbevo

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6 minutes ago, heinhorn said:

Yeah, Iran is a long ways away from there so it couldn't possibly have been them.  

Nobody is saying that.  The point is, the Saudis couldn’t stop something flying through their own airspace for almost a 1000km.  No reason to think they can stop top-shelf hardware coming over the Gulf (or launched from boats off the coast).   

There is some debate about whether these were drones or cruise missiles, but either way, they were extremely precise.   Rebels claimed they had help in SA.   Saudis will probably round up and murder a shitload of people.  

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Schulz2.0

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7 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Nobody is saying that.  The point is, the Saudis couldn’t stop something flying through their own airspace for almost a 1000km.  No reason to think they can stop top-shelf hardware coming over the Gulf (or launched from boats off the coast).   

There is some debate about whether these were drones or cruise missiles, but either way, they were extremely precise.   Rebels claimed they had help in SA.   Saudis will probably round up and murder a shitload of people.  

It’s pretty unlikely the drones originated from Yemen. The previous drones used by the Houthi’s in attacks had no where near the range capable of doing this. 

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atomheartbevo

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1 hour ago, Schulz2.0 said:

It’s pretty unlikely the drones originated from Yemen. The previous drones used by the Houthi’s in attacks had no where near the range capable of doing this. 

If they came from the Gulf, then that means all of the hardware we and the Saudis have pointed at the Gulf was fucking useless.  If I were MBS, I'd be sleeping somewhere other than one of his palaces.

Speculation was that they were smaller cruise missiles that could have the range.

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El Squared

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Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Nobody is saying that.  The point is, the Saudis couldn’t stop something flying through their own airspace for almost a 1000km.  No reason to think they can stop top-shelf hardware coming over the Gulf (or launched from boats off the coast).   

There is some debate about whether these were drones or cruise missiles, but either way, they were extremely precise.   Rebels claimed they had help in SA.   Saudis will probably round up and murder a shitload of people.  

There are a couple mysteries here:

1. Saudi Arabia has had sophisticated radar including AWACs and other US and European hardware for decades   As well as US military advisors and military contractors in country so  it’s difficult for me  to believe their critical oil assets somehow are this vulnerable to “ low tech , relatively low speed drones”. They also were aware of the drone threat in the past.

2. The reports I have read about the attacks mention refinery facilities, not crude oil pumping stations or crude oil management facilities. The oil supply being threatened and production cuts  discussed are not refined petroleum products but crude oil. Something either is not being reported correctly or there is another issue.

Edited by El Squared
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atomheartbevo

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Posted
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1 minute ago, El Squared said:

There are a couple mysteries here:

1. Saudi Arabia has sophisticated radar including AWACs and other US and European hardware for decades  so that it’s difficult to believe their critical oil assets somehow are this vulnerable to “ low tech , relatively low speed drones”. They also were aware of the drone threat in the past.

2. The reports I have read about the attacks mention refinery facilities, not crude oil pumping stations or crude oil management facilities. The oil supply being threatened and production cuts are not refined petroleum products but crude oil. Something either is not being reported correctly or there is another issue.

The Saudis have the world's biggest IPO on deck, directly affected by this, and this little incident clearly showed the risks that Aramco has going forward.

So yeah, there is no way in hell the Saudis are being upfront about this.

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El Squared

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Posted (edited)
6 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

The Saudis have the world's biggest IPO on deck, directly affected by this, and this little incident clearly showed the risks that Aramco has going forward.

So yeah, there is no way in hell the Saudis are being upfront about this.

My parents worked for Aramco in the 1970s- late 1990s. 

Security is very tight, and has only gotten tighter. Yes there have been internal incidents but they are relatively uncommon and quickly hushed up. The IPO angle adds additional mystery and suspects, as there are many others that benefit from a failed or aborted IPO launch other than Iran and some Yemeni rebels.

Edited by El Squared
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J.R.

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Posted
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48 minutes ago, El Squared said:

There are a couple mysteries here:

1. Saudi Arabia has had sophisticated radar including AWACs and other US and European hardware for decades   As well as US military advisors and military contractors in country so  it’s difficult for me  to believe their critical oil assets somehow are this vulnerable to “ low tech , relatively low speed drones”. They also were aware of the drone threat in the past.

2. The reports I have read about the attacks mention refinery facilities, not crude oil pumping stations or crude oil management facilities. The oil supply being threatened and production cuts  discussed are not refined petroleum products but crude oil. Something either is not being reported correctly or there is another issue.

On 2, there is not a 8 mm bpd refinery anywhere in the world, so this is a crude processing facility. I guess it’s refining, but it’s not a refinery in any sense. Typical media nitwits not going through fact checkers. 

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tequila

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Posted

No idea how much of SA’s exports are refined products; however I would assume it’s a big percentage. If you’re trying to cripple their economy for at least a few months it makes sense to target the bottleneck in getting products out, as opposed to pump jacks which will be more spread out. Rebuilding a refinery is going to be much more complicated than hitting the actual production facilities inmo.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Johnny Chimpo

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I read on Reuter’s that they knocked out five crude stabilization towers. Those are massive pressure vessels and even though I’ve never specced out installing them I am in the industry. Lead time on something like that would be like 2-3 months minimum if you could get a fab shop to dedicate itself directly to you and toss all other orders aside. 

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atomheartbevo

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6 minutes ago, Johnny Chimpo said:

I read on Reuter’s that they knocked out five crude stabilization towers. Those are massive pressure vessels and even though I’ve never specced out installing them I am in the industry. Lead time on something like that would be like 2-3 months minimum if you could get a fab shop to dedicate itself directly to you and toss all other orders aside. 

They've got an IPO in the works, they will throw enough money at somebody to get it back online.

But they are fucked if another Aramco site gets hit again.  I mean, it's a normal part of war, even if it's a nation-state versus a stateless-nation instead of nation-state on nation-state, it's still infrastructure and the last 100 years has seen plenty of attacks on infrastructure.

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Wally Fairway

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10 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

The whole "locked and loaded" and acting like we are going to "proceed" in some way is....troublesome.

I saw someone (former military) who commented this morning and their take was it is all "huff and puff". The US has 2 carrier task forces in the area, USS Abraham Lincoln is in the Arabian Sea, and the USS Bataan (Marine Expeditionary Unit) is in Red Sea. 
By definition the US military is charged with always being locked and loaded.
Once again, Trump is all smoke and no substance, he doesn't want a shooting war because the only thing he is thinking about is his own reelection (sorry to cloak room my own thread)

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Onboard 2.0

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1 minute ago, Wally Fairway said:

I saw someone (former military) who commented this morning and their take was it is all "huff and puff". The US has 2 carrier task forces in the area, USS Abraham Lincoln is in the Arabian Sea, and the USS Bataan (Marine Expeditionary Unit) is in Red Sea. 
By definition the US military is charged with always being locked and loaded.
Once again, Trump is all smoke and no substance, he doesn't want a shooting war because the only thing he is thinking about is his own reelection (sorry to cloak room my own thread)

Yep, pretty much this.

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Cajun

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Posted
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10 hours ago, Johnny Chimpo said:

I read on Reuter’s that they knocked out five crude stabilization towers. Those are massive pressure vessels and even though I’ve never specced out installing them I am in the industry. Lead time on something like that would be like 2-3 months minimum if you could get a fab shop to dedicate itself directly to you and toss all other orders aside. 

SA could ring that bell, I'm quite certain.

$$$$$$$$$$$$s

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F250

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On 9/14/2019 at 8:45 PM, Wally Fairway said:

To clearify, it is Yemini Houthi drones which are widely recognized as coming from Iran

Yemeni Houthi drones sounds like something George Lucas made up for a Star Wars movie.

Han Solo had to abandon his mission on Tatooine due to Boba Fett deploying Yemeni Houthi drones against the Millennium Falcon.

 

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