Attacks on major oil plants in Saudi Arabia have shaken up global oil markets and complicated the already strained relations between the kingdom and its regional arch-rival Iran. Get up to speed fast here:
What happened over the weekend?
Coordinated strikes targeted key Saudi Arabian oil facilities early on Saturday morning, causing a dramatic escalation in tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Two crude processing facilities were hit: Abqaiq and Khurais. Abqaiq, operated by Saudi giant Aramco, is the world’s largest processing plant.
The attacks started a series of fires that took out nearly half of Saudi’s oil production — 5% of the global daily output.
Two Saudi sources familiar with the kingdom’s oil operations tell CNN that restoring production to its pre-attack levels “will take weeks, not days.”
“This is unprecedented in scale, and impact,” according to both sources.
A senior official told CNN that 19 Saudi targets were struck in Saturday’s attack, drawing on commercial satellite imagery shared with CNN.
