Saudi Oil Crisis Far From Over
The greatest crisis in nearly 50 years for oil’s largest exporter appears to have ended in just 72 hours. Or has it?
With what seemed like the wave of a magic wand, Saudi Prince and Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman said almost half of the output lost from the weekend attacks on the Kingdom’s oil facilities will be restored by the end of September.
What’s more, in two months, total Saudi output would be even higher than before the attacks, he assured.
Deceiving Calm After The Storm
By the looks of it, this tranquility could be more deceiving than thought.
Whatever the market’s understanding of the Saudis’ crisis management and turnaround skills from the Sept. 14 hits on their oilfield, one thing looks clear: Riyadh’s problems are far from over.
Crude prices, which jumped almost 15% on Monday on fears that the Saudi supply outage could last weeks or even months, sank nearly 7% in the next session on Prince Abdulaziz’s assurances. Yet, volatility is likely to get worse in the coming days, weeks and months as Riyadh’s actions risk not matching up to its words.
Protecting Aramco IPO
While market and industry participants may be skeptical with the lightning speed at which the Saudis moved to announce relief for their energy business and plants struck in the aerial raids, many interestingly seem to understand the Kingdom’s motives.
At the heart of the Saudi action is its determination to protect at all cost the upcoming IPO of state oil company Aramco, which, despite boasting the promise of being the world’s largest planned share sale with a total targeted valuation of $2 trillion, has been beset with woes since it was conceived in 2016.
The Need To Avoid Force Majeure
Lastly, there’s another urgency that may be as important but which the Saudis would rather not talk about — the avoidance of force majeure, which would mean the inability to deliver on contracted cargoes of oil.
Saudi Arabia simply cannot afford a taint on that reputation, especially with the upcoming Aramco IPO.
However, Prince Abdulaziz’s conjuring away of Saudi Arabia’s post-attack problems does not seem credible at all.
On the contrary, the Kingdom may be starting an all-new crisis for itself in how it responds to the attacks.
What are those responses?
Production Ramp-Up Issues
Let’s begin with the so-called production ramp-ups.
If indeed, damage to the Abqaiq and Khurais facilities can be as easily fixed as the Saudi energy minister suggests, then meeting or even exceeding his output targets won’t be a problem. If not, the opposite will be true.
Prince Abdulaziz said Saudi Arabia will have the ability to produce 11 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of September and 12 million bpd by end-November.
Saudi Arabia produced 9.85 million bpd in August. The last time it produced as much as 11 million bpd was nearly a year ago, in November 2018.
Since the start of 2019, the Kingdom has been cutting supplies steeply to fulfill the OPEC+ agenda of rebalancing the world market from oversupply.
While the Saudis also have the ability to turn up the spigots at any time—August being an occasion when they did—adding more than 1 million bpd in total crude production this month itself looks questionable, especially after days of outage at Abqaiq.
According to Aramco CEO Nasir Ameen, some 2 million bpd has been restored at Abqaiq, which had a 4.9-million bpd output before the attacks. He added that full production would be achieved by end-September.
But with less than two weeks left to the month, it raises doubts again on how attainable such a target is.
Those in the know question the time needed to fix fire-damaged pipelines and patch and test more than a dozen storage tanks. If, for any reason, Saudi supplies fall short of contracted sales, Riyadh might just negotiate privately with the affected customers to buy more time on delivery, rather than declare a force majeure.
A Counter-Attack On Iran?
Then we come to the so-called loss of face and what the Saudis intend to do about that. This is perhaps the most significant response that will come out of the Kingdom because it will likely involve a counterstrike on Iran.
Bloomberg reported that Saudi Arabia will hold a news conference on Wednesday evening outlining Iran’s role as well as the weapons used in the attacks. This is likely the “explainer” that will lay the ground for retaliation against Tehran. Iran has officially denied any role in the attacks, but the Saudis and the Trump administration think differently,
The Washington Post reported that Saudi Arabia could engage in a strike that the United States would support with intelligence, targeting information and surveillance capabilities. But the U.S. itself would not fire any weapon at Iran, in line with Trump’s stance of being “locked-and-loaded to respond” but “not ready for war”.
Potential Iranian targets for the strike include the Abadan oil refinery, one of the world’s largest, or Kharg Island, Iran’s biggest oil export facility. Attacks on either location would significantly impede Iran’s ability to process and sell oil.
Other possibilities include hitting missile launch sites, bases or other assets belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — the elite Iranian military unit blamed for much of Iran’s paramilitary operations against adversaries outside the country.