BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s energy minister said on Sunday the drone attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the world’s top exporter, would have no impact on Thai oil imports.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group claimed responsibility for Saturday’s drone attacks on two facilities of state-run oil company Saudi Aramco at the heart of the kingdom’s oil industry, knocking out more than half of Saudi oil output.
Aramco, whose CEO said the situation had been brought under control, has contracts with Thailand’s state-controlled PTT Pcl.
“There is no impact on exports yet as the attacked facilities are in the deserts, which doesn’t affect the oil depot that supplies to PTT Group, so there is no impact on Thailand’s oil imports yet,” Thai energy minister Sontirat Sontijirawong said in a statement.
“Overall Thailand has enough reserves in crude oil, in-transit crude oil, and petroleum products, and there will be no short-term shortages in the event that Saudi Arabia’s oil exports are affected,” Sontirat added.
The ministry has reached out to Aramco after the attacks, but told Reuters that it has not yet received official response from the oil company.
Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest oil exporter, shipping more than 7 million barrels of oil to global destinations every day.
