Oil prices soar on Monday, September 16, two days after drone attacks on oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, resulting in a halving of production.
North Sea Brent rose 10.08% to 66.29 dollars per barrel after rising to 19.5%, a level unprecedented since the 1991 Gulf War, at 71.95 dollars. US crude (West Texas Intermediate, WTI) rose 8.97% to 59.77 dollars after taking up 15.5%, its largest daily increase since June 22, 1998.
Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter, and attacks on two of Aramco's strategic facilities reduced production by 5.7 million barrels a day, equivalent to 5% of world daily consumption.
Aramco has not provided a normal return schedule, only to say Sunday it would do in about 48 hours a new inventory. A source familiar with the situation told Reuters that a return to normal Saudi oil production should take "weeks rather than days".
As markets closely monitor Saudi Arabia's reaction, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said "work" was "under way" to restore production.
The Saudi prince Abdel Aziz ben Salmane, recently appointed Minister of Energy, assured that part of the decline in production would be offset by stocks.
United States ready to fight back
On the diplomatic front, the United States, the strategic allies of the Wahhabi kingdom, has declared itself "ready to respond" to the drone attacks claimed by Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels, who have been facing a coalition for five years. military led by Riyadh.
"Saudi Arabia's oil supply has been attacked.There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are ready to retaliate based on the verifications, but we are waiting for the (Saudi) Kingdom to tell us who it is. believe it to be the culprit of this attack, and in what form we will have to act! ", tweeted Sunday Donald Trump, who thus made for the first time allusion to a possible military response.
US Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo has accused Iran of "launching an unprecedented attack on global energy supplies."
For his part, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose country is the great regional rival of Shiite Iran, assured that Riyad was "willing and able" to react to this "terrorist aggression".
The UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths said he was "extremely concerned" by the attacks, also condemned by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait.
France, for its part, condemned attacks that can "only aggravate tensions and the risk of conflict in the region" and assured Saudi Arabia of its "full solidarity", without designating a culprit.
Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), meeting in Jeddah, also condemned the attack. It was unclear whether Iran was present at the OIC meeting, originally convened to discuss the plan of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the attacks and called on all parties to "restrain him from escalating," according to his spokesman.
Iran refutes US accusations
Pointed the finger, Iran on Sunday called "foolish" the accusations of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo holding the Islamic Republic responsible for the attack of drones.
"Such sterile and blind accusations and remarks are incomprehensible and insane," said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi. According to him, these remarks are intended to "undermine the reputation of a country to create a framework for future actions against him".
Referring to the United States '"maximum pressure" policy against Iran, he said in a statement to the press that Washington had "apparently transformed (the latter into a policy of)' a 'maximum lie'. made of his failures ".
"If we want real security in the region, the solution is to stop the American aggression," said Iranian President Hassan Rohani.
Tensions between the two countries have been exacerbated since the United States withdrew unilaterally in 2018 from the Iranian nuclear deal reached in 2015, before restoring economic sanctions against Tehran.
The situation threatened to turn into direct military confrontation in June, after the Islamic Republic shot down an American drone. According to Tehran, the aircraft violated Iran's airspace, which Washington denies.
Amirali Hajizadeh, commander of the aerospace branch of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, for his part estimated Sunday that current tensions, "with forces facing each other on the ground", could contribute to the triggered an armed conflict, according to the agency Tasnim, close to ultraconservatives.
The Brigadier added that Iran was "always prepared for total war". But "neither us nor the Americans want a war," he said, resuming the official Iranian speech.
With AFP and Reuters