Saudi Arabia oil pumping stations hit by drone attack

OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia said it had stopped pumping crude oil along a major pipeline Tuesday following a drone attack, hours after Yemen's Huthi rebels said they had targeted vital Saudi installations.

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Tuesday that two oil pumping stations for the East-West pipeline had been hit by explosive-laden drones, calling the attack "an act of terrorism" that targeted global oil supplies.

Falih said that Saudi oil output and exports for crude and refined products were continuing without disruption, but that the state oil giant Aramco had halted oil pumping in the pipeline while the damage was evaluated and the stations were repaired, according to a statement carried by the state news agency SPA.

A television station run by Yemen's Houthi group said on Tuesday the Iran-aligned movement had launched drone attacks on Saudi installations, without identifying the targets or time of the attacks.

Saudi Arabia offered no immediate confirmation of the report, which comes a day after Riyadh said two of its oil tankers were among four vessels attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Sunday.

The Masirah TV report cited a Houthi military official as saying that "seven drones carried out attacks on vital Saudi installations."

It was not immediately clear if the Houthis, who are battling a Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen, were claiming responsibility for Sunday's attack near Fujairah emirate, which lies just outside the Strait of Hormuz. UAE authorities have not described the nature of that attack or who was behind it.

The Houthis have repeatedly launched drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and claimed to have launched drone attacks on the UAE.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are leading the Western-backed Sunni Muslim alliance that intervened in Yemen in 2015 against the Houthis to try to restore the internationally recognised government ousted from power in the capital Sanaa in late 2014.

The conflict is widely seen in the region as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Houthis deny being puppets of Iran and say their revolution is against corruption.