Saudis exaggerating damage from Aramco attack: Zanganeh

Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh says the impact on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities from Yemeni attacks on Sept. 14 has been blown out of proportion.

According to Saudi officials, the brazen attack by Yemeni forces shut down 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd) of Saudi Arabia’s oil production, which represents more than half of the kingdom’s or five percent of global output.

“I never believed that with this attack half of the oil production of Saudi Arabia was made unavailable,” Zangeneh said Wednesday upon arrival in Moscow for a meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF).

“I think Saudi Arabia has resorted to political exaggeration about this in order to say that the energy security of the world has been put in danger,” he added.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman sought to whip up a sense of global emergency on Sunday when he tied up the attack to Iran and the alleged need to confront the country.

“If the world does not take a strong and firm action to deter Iran, we will see further escalations that will threaten world interests,” he said in an interview with the CBS program “60 Minutes”.

“Oil supplies will be disrupted and oil prices will jump to unimaginably high numbers that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes,” he added.

Zangeneh said on Wednesday the energy market must be non-political in order to prevent interference.

“The energy market must be non-political in order to prevent unilateral and illegal interference,” he said.

The minister also said he was ready to meet his new Saudi counterpart whom he described a friend for more than two decades despite tensions between the two countries.

“Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has been a friend for over 22 years,” Zangeneh said of the Saudi minister of energy who replaced Khalif al-Falih last month.

SS