(Bloomberg) – Saudi Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran in eastern Saudi Arabia was hit during a missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi militants on Tuesday, causing a fire in a part of the complex, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The fire has since been put out, one of the people said. The extent of the damage wasn’t clear, and it couldn’t immediately be established what caused the fire or if the impact was from debris from intercepted projectiles. The people familiar with the matter asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.
Aramco and the Saudi energy ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said Houthi missiles had targeted several cities in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, including the capital Riyadh and Dhahran where Aramco is headquartered. Shrapnel from an interception fell in part of a residential area in Dhahran, it said.
The missile launches are part of a wave of attacks on Saudi Arabia in recent days that has also targeted airports around the country, which left at least 18 people dead and hundreds injured. The latest Houthi attacks come after the Saudi coalition had warned people in the vicinity of an oil site in Houthi-held capital Sanaa in Yemen to leave the area “for their safety.”
Other oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia has also been targeted during the escalating hostilities with the Houthis. A refinery at Jazan in the kingdom’s west has been shut since an earlier attack, while a key oil export port on the Red Sea coast has also been targeted. A cross-country pipeline that’s been the main means for Aramco to get its oil to world markets was temporarily shut last month following an attack launched from Iraq.
Dhahran, located along Saudi Arabia’s Persian Gulf coast, is at the heart of the kingdom’s oil economy. It’s home to Aramco, a university specializing in petroleum engineering and a major air base. Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil fields are located in the deserts of the Eastern Province and in the Persian Gulf.
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