Saudi Arabia continues oil supplies through the Red Sea – Kommersant

Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Saudi Arabian Oil Group (Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest) continues to supply oil through the Red Sea, despite attacks by the radical Yemeni movement Ansar Allah (Houthis). This is reported by Bloomberg.

“We are moving through the Red Sea with our cargoes of oil and petroleum products,” said Mohammed al-Qahtani, who heads Saudi Aramco’s oil refining, trading and marketing divisions. He called the risks involved “manageable.”

As the agency notes, this contrasts with the decision of other countries, which abandoned flights in the Red Sea after retaliatory attacks by the United States and Britain against the Houthis. In response, the militants said that ships from both countries would be attacked along with Israeli ships.

Saudi Arabia’s location (Red Sea to the west and Persian Gulf to the east) makes it difficult to use other routes. Saudi Aramco regularly ships crude oil and fuel from the Persian Gulf, where its largest oil fields and major refineries are located.

Since the conflict began, there has been a steady flow of Saudi tankers through the southern Red Sea, including to the Jizan refinery in the Red Sea, tanker tracking data reviewed by Bloomberg shows.

But Saudi Aramco’s customers have not shipped any crude oil cargoes through the Red Sea this month that might otherwise have been shipped via Egypt to buyers in the west. In any case, notes Bloomberg, the flow of Saudi oil to Western countries is periodic, since most of the Saudi oil is sent to Asia.

Saudi Aramco also uses the pipeline to transport oil from major fields in the east to the Red Sea coast, where it can be exported through the Suez Canal, a Saudi company spokesman said.

In the first half of January, Saudi Aramco shipped as much oil from its Red Sea terminal at Yanbu north to Europe as it did in the entire previous month, according to ship tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

However, like others in the industry, Saudi Aramco faces fewer ships willing to sail to the Red Sea and therefore higher insurance costs. According to a Saudi Aramco representative, sooner or later this situation will affect the cost of oil transportation.

How quotes are growing based on statistics from the United States and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea – in the material “Easy to rise oil”.

Anastasia Larina