The Yemeni militant Houthi group says it’s targeting vital Saudi Arabian energy facilities — a situation that threatens to harden high gasoline prices at a precarious moment for Republicans ahead of the midterms.
The Houthis’ target, according to Al Jazeera, is Abqaiq, the world’s largest crude oil processing facility, which is responsible for stabilizing about 7 percent of the world’s crude oil. Many of its critical components are custom-built and irreplaceable on any short timeline. While blockades in the Strait of Hormuz have spiked oil and gasoline prices worldwide, there’s been enough slack in the global system to keep prices from going even higher.
But much of that slack is now tapped, and hobbling a facility like Abqaiq would quickly send global oil and crude prices spiking, said Thomas Warrick, who served as deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in President Donald Trump’s first term and has visited Abqaiq.
“Abqaiq is among the most important pieces of critical infrastructure on the planet,” said Warrick, who has called the facility the “Panama Canal” of global energy markets. “It ought to be one of the places on the planet that gets the most attention from security officials, economists, engineers, and technical people.”
