HOUSTON - The drone attack on one of Saudi Arabia's most important oil facilities could cripple a portion of Saudi petroleum exports for days or even weeks and send energy prices substantially higher.The attack on the Abqaiq processing facility and another plant, deep in Saudi territory, displayed the vulnerability of the kingdom to tensions in the Persian Gulf region.
The attack raised the possibility of further disruptions in Saudi Arabia's oil production if there were additional attacks on its fields and pipelines. The main uncertainty is how long will it take for the Saudis to repair the Abqaiq facility, which separates gas from oil from several important oil fields.
Other analysts took a dimmer view, even as Saudi Aramco said on Sunday that repairs were already underway. The initial reaction of oil traders was panicky. "Export volumes will be severely impacted," Clay Seigle, an analyst at Genscape, a market research firm, said in an e-mail.
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