Houthis hit the Shaybah oil field: Brent around $110, the east–west pipeline halted since October 5
The Saudi side says operations were unaffected, while fuel prices here depend on world quotations and RKE decisions.
Yemen's Houthis on October 22 targeted with a drone the processing plant of the Shaybah oil field of Saudi Aramco, which produces about one million barrels of crude a day. Saudi air defences intercepted the drone, but debris fell near the plant. According to the Saudi Energy Ministry, two people were killed and two injured, and a contractor's vehicle caught fire. The ministry said “operations were unaffected”.
Hours later, an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam killed one person and injured eight, according to the Saudi civil aviation authority. The Houthis, according to the report, did not comment on the airport. The US ordered non-emergency government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia.
The oil price reacted: Brent rose about 1.7 percent, or 1.81 dollars, to about 110.63 dollars a barrel, and WTI about 1.4 percent, to about 98.52 dollars. According to other reports from early trading, Brent was at 110.11 dollars. The difference comes from the figures being taken at different times, so all that matters is that the market is around 110 dollars.
Why are attacks on Saudi Arabia sensitive? According to the same report, crude flows through the east–west pipeline, with a capacity of about seven million barrels a day, were reportedly halted on October 5 after a Houthi strike damaged a pumping station east of Riyadh. That pipeline allows Saudi exporters to bypass the risks at Hormuz. If it is halted, alternative routes already strained by the war with Iran remain more limited, which raises the geopolitical risk premium in the market.
What does this mean for fuel here? In the latest RKE calculation diesel is 99 denars a liter and 95-octane petrol is 96, and the diesel price had earlier been moving up with world reference quotations. The next calculation will depend on whether world prices stay around the current level. The oil crisis state, extended to April 20, 2027, and the reduced VAT on diesel are the measures that soften that link. I did not find a date for the next RKE calculation in the available reports.
The report carries no analyst commentary, so I cannot say how the market assesses the risk. That is a limitation to keep in mind: the price is moving with the attacks, but how much of it is lasting is not known.
What is not known? It is not known whether the attacks will affect Saudi physical exports, how long the east–west pipeline has been halted and whether the pumping station has been repaired. It is also unknown whether there will be new attacks, or what the next RKE decisions on fuel prices will be.
What does it mean? The oil market is hostage to the security situation in the Middle East. While that lasts, a price around 110 dollars is a new normal, and pressure on fuel here remains.
MKNews Hub · Macedonia · October 23, 2026
