Brent rises 4% to $113.17 as Saudi-Houthi conflict escalates and Aramco headquarters is evacuated
Key Facts
Brent crude rose 4% to $113.17 a barrel on Thursday, according to the Associated Press, as fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis resumed and Aramco's headquarters in Dhahran was evacuated. The price followed a 5-month high reached amid security developments affecting Saudi facilities. Brent had traded below $97 a barrel at the start of the month, according to the agency's comparison with Thursday's session prices. In Saudi Arabia, the main stock index fell 2.5% following the Aramco news, according to London Stock Exchange Group data cited by Reuters for Thursday's session. Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, said the company asked employees to evacuate its Dhahran headquarters that day. Bloomberg cited people familiar with the matter as saying the measure followed an alarm inside the headquarters, which preceded the evacuation of employees. The developments coincided with mounting concerns over regional oil supplies, discussed in an ING analysis published on Thursday.
On operations, Bloomberg cited the Saudi Energy Ministry as saying the attack on the Shaybah field had not affected production. "The attack on Shaybah did not affect production," the ministry said, according to the agency, in a statement addressing continued operations at the field after it was targeted. Elsewhere, the Houthis announced they had targeted Aramco facilities in Yanbu and the Defence Ministry in Riyadh, according to Reuters, without confirmation from Saudi authorities that those attacks had occurred. Reuters reported that a Houthi attack targeted King Fahd International Airport in Dammam on Wednesday evening, before news of the evacuation of Aramco's headquarters on Thursday. The airport attack killed 2 people, a Saudi citizen and an Indian national, according to the death toll reported by the agency. Another 8 people were injured in the same attack, which hit the airport amid renewed fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. Reuters on Thursday cited Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation as saying airport operations had resumed following the attack the previous evening.
The escalation follows a U.N.-brokered truce in 2022 that had largely halted cross-border attacks between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, according to Reuters. The agency said renewed fighting ended the truce, which had underpinned a period of reduced attacks before the current hostilities resumed. On the U.S. front, ING's analysis published on Thursday said the escalation prompted the U.S. State Department to order non-essential U.S. government personnel to leave Saudi Arabia. In the broader energy market, the U.S. Energy Information Administration identified higher transportation costs and risk premiums as factors keeping oil prices elevated. The agency linked those factors to continued production disruptions and restricted oil flows from the Middle East in its assessment of supply conditions in its October report.
In its inventory estimates, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said global oil inventories fell by an average of 1.9 million barrels a day in the third quarter of 2026. For the fourth quarter of the same year, the agency forecast continued draws on global inventories averaging 0.7 million barrels a day, according to its October report. The inventory trajectory presented by the agency thus points to a continued decline in the fourth quarter, at a slower pace than the estimated average decline in the third quarter. As for the risk premium in oil prices, ING's analysis released on Thursday said its easing would require clear signs of de-escalation. The analysis said the large premium was "unlikely to fade until clear signs of de-escalation emerge." It also linked a decline in the premium to reassuring investors about the continuity of regional supplies, amid concerns raised by the attacks on Saudi Arabia.