EL7.AI
CommoditiesMedium•22 October 2026•
3 min read

Brent rises 2.8% to $111.84 amid attacks in Saudi Arabia as Shaybah operations continue

Key Facts

1Brent futures rose 2.8% to $111.84 a barrel at 12:47 GMT during Thursday's session.
2Saudi Arabia's energy ministry confirmed that operations at the Shaybah field, which has a production capacity of 1 million barrels a day, were unaffected.
3The attack on King Fahd Airport in Dammam on Wednesday evening killed two people and injured 8 others.
4U.S. crude inventories fell by 3.1 million barrels in the week ended October 16, more than expected.
5The Energy Information Administration forecast that spot Brent would average $105 in the fourth quarter of 2026, up $14 from the previous month's forecast.

Brent crude futures rose 2.8% to $111.84 a barrel during Thursday's session amid attacks in Saudi Arabia and regional disruptions affecting crude production. The contracts reached that price at 12:47 GMT, according to Investing.com, in trading on October 22. In the same snapshot, West Texas Intermediate crude futures stood at $99.67 a barrel. Those prices followed an attack on King Fahd Airport in Dammam on Wednesday evening and an incident near the Shaybah oil field facility. Saudi authorities reported casualties in the airport attack, while the energy ministry confirmed that operations at the field were unaffected by the nearby incident.

Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation said the King Fahd Airport attack killed two people, according to Arab News. It added that the attack injured 8 people, leaving both dead and wounded at the airport in Dammam. In the incident near Shaybah, Saudi Arabia's energy ministry said a fire broke out in a vehicle, according to Reuters via EnergyNow. The fire occurred "outside the facility's perimeter," the ministry said in describing its location. The Shaybah field itself has a production capacity of 1 million barrels of crude a day, according to Bloomberg via World Oil. The ministry said operations at the field were "unaffected," with the field continuing to operate despite the incident outside the facility's perimeter.

Against the backdrop of the escalation, Saudi Arabia responded to Houthi attacks with a wave of strikes targeting missile launch sites, according to Reuters. Measures linked to the security situation extended to the U.S. government presence in the kingdom, as the U.S. State Department issued an ordered departure, according to The National. Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the order covered non-essential government personnel and their family members in Saudi Arabia. Alongside these regional developments, official U.S. data released on Wednesday showed a larger-than-expected decline in U.S. crude inventories, according to Investing.com. The inventory draw totaled 3.1 million barrels in the week ended October 16, the period covered by the data published ahead of Thursday's rise in oil prices.

The latest developments follow continued crude production outages caused by regional disruptions during September, according to estimates in the U.S. Energy Information Administration's October report. The agency estimated that production outages averaged about 4.8 million barrels a day that month. Outages had averaged 5.8 million barrels a day in August before declining the following month. For prices ahead, the agency forecast that spot Brent would average $105 a barrel in the fourth quarter of 2026. In its October report, it raised that estimate by $14 a barrel from its September forecast, setting a higher average price for the final quarter of the year.