Saudi Aramco delays Jazan oil refinery restart to August 30, IIR note shows

Saudi Aramco has postponed the restart of its 400,000-barrel-per-day Jazan refinery to August 30 after two Houthi attacks since late July, according to an alert from industry monitor IIR seen by Reuters.

The extended outage could further tighten global fuel markets already disrupted by refinery outages in the Middle East following the Iran war and by Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, potentially boosting refining margins.

Yemen's Houthi militants said on Sunday they had attacked the refinery, which has been shut since July 27 after an earlier Houthi strike, according to a previous IIR alert seen by Reuters. The previously planned restart date was August 15.

Saudi Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Houthis declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea last month, citing what they described as a Saudi siege. Riyadh denies the allegation.

Saudi Arabia's energy ministry said on Sunday that Aramco's firefighting teams had extinguished a blaze that broke out early that day at a facility belonging to the refinery. It provided no further information about the plant's operations.

According to IIR, the July 27 attack damaged the refinery's Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) complex and tank farm area. It also said the refinery's 80,000-bpd reformer had been unexpectedly offline since May 27 because of operational issues.

Reformers convert naphtha into high-octane gasoline blendstocks and produce hydrogen for other refining units.

Saudi fuel exports, including liquefied petroleum gas, averaged about 1.32 million bpd in July, according to Kpler data, up from 1.16 million bpd in June but still roughly 30% below levels seen before the Iran war began in late February.