TASI falls 2.5% after staff evacuated from Aramco headquarters in Dhahran
Key Facts
Saudi Aramco evacuated the remaining staff from its headquarters in Dhahran on Thursday and instructed them to work from home, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, in a development followed by a decline in Saudi stocks during the session. The instructions to evacuate the headquarters came after an attack hit it the previous week, according to sources who spoke to AFP about measures inside the compound. Non-essential staff had already been working remotely since that attack, meaning the new instructions covered employees who were still coming to the headquarters. The evacuation was limited to the remaining staff, while residential areas inside Aramco's Dhahran compound remained open and were not covered by the evacuation measures, according to the agency's sources. A source told AFP that "no specific reason was given" for the evacuation order.
On the earlier attack on the company's headquarters, the Associated Press cited regional officials as saying it damaged the building's upper floors. The officials said the damage was confined to the top 3 floors, and the agency reported that the attack caused no casualties. Saudi Arabia's energy ministry had described the earlier incident as a "limited fire" that broke out on Tuesday in an Aramco administrative building. The ministry said no injuries were recorded, according to the Associated Press. As a historical comparison, Aramco previously said in a statement on the Abqaiq and Khurais attacks that they had suspended production of 5.7 million barrels of crude oil per day.
The developments at Aramco's headquarters coincided with an announcement by the Saudi-backed coalition that it had intercepted 4 drones near the capital Riyadh and Medina, amid continued fighting with the Houthis. In Dammam, an attack targeted King Fahd International Airport on Wednesday evening, killing two people, according to the General Authority of Civil Aviation. The authority also reported that 8 others of various nationalities were injured in the airport attack, according to the casualty toll cited by Euronews. On Thursday, the authority said operations at Dammam airport had resumed after the attack the previous night, Reuters reported. The authority added that air traffic had "returned to normal" as airport operations resumed.
In the Saudi market, the benchmark TASI index fell 2.5% during Thursday's session after the Aramco news, according to London Stock Exchange Group data cited by Reuters. In the oil market, Brent crude futures had risen during Wednesday's trading, before the evacuation news. The increase amounted to 85 cents a barrel, according to prices reported by Reuters in its coverage of that trading session. That represented a gain of 0.78%, taking crude futures to $109.64 a barrel. The price was recorded at 00:22 GMT on Wednesday, before the developments at Aramco's headquarters announced on Thursday.
On the oil outlook, the U.S. Energy Information Administration raised its forecast for the average Brent spot price in its October report. The agency projected an average of $105 a barrel during the fourth quarter of 2026. That estimate is $14 a barrel above its forecast for the same period in the previous month's report. On the company's financial disclosures, Aramco lists the date of its next quarterly results announcement in its investor calendar. Third-quarter results for 2026 are scheduled to be announced on 3 November 2026, according to the date published on the company's website.