Aramco evacuates Dhahran HQ as Houthi attacks escalate

The latest:

Saudi Aramco has ordered employees out of its Dhahran headquarters on the Gulf and told them to work remotely, six people familiar with the matter told Reuters, in what would be the company’s first evacuation since the start of the war with Iran. The reason for the order was not clear. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Details:

• The trigger: The order follows a wave of Houthi attacks targeting Aramco facilities and Saudi airports, according to Reuters. Earlier this month a Houthi strike caused heavy damage to the Dhahran headquarters itself, with fire spreading across several floors.
• Market reaction: The TASI, Saudi Arabia’s main index, dropped 2.5% on Thursday after the Aramco news, according to LSEG data. Brent futures rose $3.06, or 2.81%, to $111.88 a barrel by 11:04 GMT, after touching $112.55 earlier, the highest since 18 May.
• Nearby casualties: A Houthi attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, near Dhahran in the eastern oil hub, killed two people on Wednesday evening, a Saudi national and an Indian national, and wounded eight. Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said Thursday that air traffic was normal.
• Houthi claims: Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a televised address that the group struck Aramco facilities in Yanbu and the defence ministry in Riyadh. Saudi authorities did not confirm it. The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted drones over Riyadh and Medina.
• The wider front: Fighting intensified after the Houthis advanced toward Bab al-Mandab, the shipping lane at the entrance to the Red Sea. Renewed combat collapsed the UN-brokered 2022 truce that had largely halted cross-border attacks, opening another front in the US-Israeli war on Iran.
• Saudi response: The kingdom answered with strikes on missile launch sites, pledging to protect its territory and saying it intercepted several ballistic missiles. Saree claimed Saudi attacks on Yemen have killed or wounded 562 people since mid-July, when the Houthis imposed a naval blockade.
• Production damage: Saudi output fell below 7 million barrels per day for most of the war’s first six months, down from more than 10 million bpd before the conflict, according to the International Energy Agency. It recovered to about 8 million bpd in September.
• Export chokepoints: Aramco is studying additional crude export routes after the war exposed the vulnerability of Hormuz, Bab al-Mandab and Suez. The East-West pipeline, used to bypass Hormuz, carries about 7 million bpd and is being expanded toward 10 million; Riyadh said in September that drones launched from Iraq targeted it.
• Company resilience: CEO Amin Nasser told Al Arabiya Business that Aramco is seeking partnerships abroad to expand strategic storage, and that capital spending guidance for 2026 is unchanged at $50-55 billion. The company uses drones to survey damage and sources about 90% of repair materials domestically.
• Supply math: Nasser said roughly 3 billion barrels of supply have been lost during the crisis and more than 1 billion barrels drawn from inventories, with refilling stocks potentially taking up to two years. He expects demand to rise by about 3 million bpd once the war ends.

Background:

The Houthis warned airlines this month against using Saudi airspace, after repeatedly targeting Saudi airports including Riyadh International and Abha in the south. The group has also seized territory near Bab al-Mandab since advancing in September.

Between the lines:

Evacuating Dhahran moves the risk from infrastructure to personnel. The headquarters has already burned once this month, the nearby Dammam airport attack killed two, and the pattern puts the administrative center of the world’s largest crude exporter inside the strike envelope, not just its pipelines and terminals. The 2.5% TASI drop suggests markets read the order as a signal about threat level rather than a routine precaution.

What’s next

Watch whether Aramco confirms the evacuation or names a return date, whether Saudi authorities verify the claimed Yanbu strike, and whether output holds near 8 million bpd after September’s recovery.