Saudi Aramco has fully resumed oil production at its two facilities, after the deadly attacks on its processing facilities last month.
The drone and missile attacks on Aramco's Abqaib and Khurais facilities had temporarily brought down production of the world's top oil producer by about 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd), equivalent to 5 per cent of global crude supply. Now the state-owned oil giant is producing more than 9.9 million barrels a day of crude as it fully recovers from the worst-ever attack on its energy infrastructure.
Production reached that level on September 25 and is a "little bit" higher now, an Arabian Business report said, quoting Ibrahim Al-Buainain, chief executive officer of Aramco's energy trading unit. Saudi Arabia has also restored some spare capacity following the September 14 attacks, he said.
Aramco has said it is committed to meeting demand from all of its customers and did not miss any contracted shipments.
After the attacks, Brent crude surged above $70 per barrel temporarily, but bulk of these gains were wiped out after Riyadh said it would bring back production to normal levels within weeks.
Al Buainain added that his company was building redundancy into its systems that allowed the company to be resilient to the assault on the Abqaiq processing plant and Khurais field.
The strike, one of the worst in the past few decades that shocked global supplies, is not only aimed at the vital installations of the Kingdom but also on the global oil supply and its security, thus posing a threat to the global economy. It follows earlier cross-border attacks on Saudi oil installations and on oil tankers in Gulf waters.
Blames Iran
Apart from Saudi and the United States, several western powers, especially France, Germany and the United Kingdom, blamed Iran for its involvement in supplying arms to Yemen-based Houthi militia, which has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Aramco Trading, which Al-Buainain heads, also bought refined products on the market to make up for any shortfalls in fuels at home.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's Crown Price Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday warned that oil prices could jump to unimaginable levels if "the world does not take a strong and firm action to deter Iran."
In an interview with CBS television channel, he said there would be disruption of energy supplies that would ruin the global economy in the wake of a war with Iran, which is a possibility in the absence of a strong action against Iran.
