Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Tuesday they had launched an attack on Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura oil refinery, the biggest in the kingdom, located on the Gulf coast west of the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported. The group's military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a statement that the ballistic missile attack caused a fire at the site. The Saudi authorities have not confirmed the attack.
Source: Reuters, Yemen's Houthis say they launched an attack on Saudi Ras Tanura oil refinery, Oct 27 2026
A second wire account gave a slightly different version of the Houthi claim. Saree posted on X that the strike caused “massive fires”, AFP reported, and a resident in the nearby city of Al Khobar told AFP he heard explosions around dawn and received a text message alert. AFP put the Ras Tanura complex's capacity at 550,000 barrels per day, described it as one of the largest refineries in the Middle East and a cornerstone of the kingdom's energy sector, and noted it has been repeatedly targeted before, including a drone attack in early March that forced a partial shutdown of the refinery. Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter, that Saudi Arabia had contained a fire near the oil terminal at Ras Tanura in the early hours of the day, Reuters said. Awaaz Punjab is treating the scale of any fire and damage as unconfirmed until Saudi authorities or independent reporting establish it.
Source: AFP, Houthis say targeted Saudi oil refinery with ballistic missile, Oct 27 2026 (via Malay Mail)
Same morning, the coalition reported interceptions across two regions
Earlier on Tuesday, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said it had intercepted and destroyed ballistic missiles and drones launched by the Houthis towards two regions of Saudi Arabia, Reuters reported in a separate dispatch. The Houthis launched three ballistic missiles towards Saudi Arabia's Eastern Region — the region where Ras Tanura sits — and four drones towards the country's Southern Region, the coalition said. Saudi Civil Defense issued early warning alerts for a potential hostile threat in the Eastern Region and in Kharj governorate, later saying the danger had passed in both areas. The coalition statement did not name Ras Tanura, and it is not established whether the interceptions and the refinery claim concern the same missiles.
The Houthis have escalated their attacks on Saudi Arabia since September, opening another volatile front in the wider US-Israeli war on Iran, Reuters said. Saudi Arabia has intensified its strikes on the Houthis since the group captured strategic areas along Yemen's Red Sea coast last month, advancing towards the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key global shipping route for Gulf oil producers on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula from the Strait of Hormuz. The renewed fighting has shattered a 2022 UN-brokered truce that had largely halted attacks between the Saudi-led coalition, which backs Yemen's internationally recognised government, and the Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa.
Why the target matters beyond Saudi Arabia: nearly all of Saudi Arabia's oil exports flow through two main ports — Ras Tanura in the Gulf and Yanbu on the Red Sea, which the Houthis have attacked in the past, Reuters noted. Any confirmed disruption at Ras Tanura would be watched closely in oil markets and by the lakhs of Indian and Punjabi workers across the Gulf, whose jobs, flights and remittances track Gulf energy security.
Yaani: 550,000 barrels a day means the Ras Tanura complex can refine about five and a half lakh barrels of crude every day — roughly 8.75 crore litres a day — which is why even an unconfirmed claim of a fire there moves oil prices and nerves across the Gulf.