[Anchor]

Pipelines in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East's largest crude oil exporter, have been rendered inoperable following drone attacks by pro-Iranian forces. With both maritime and land routes now blocked, international oil prices are soaring.

Reporter Kim Minpyo has the details.

[Reporter]

A booster station facility on a pipeline connecting the eastern and western parts of Saudi Arabia is burned and charred black.

On the 10th of local time, at least two locations along this pipeline were hit by drone attacks, presumed to be the work of pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, forcing operations to halt.

Even the pipeline that was routing up to 7 million barrels of crude oil per day to the Red Sea port of Yanbu after the Strait of Hormuz was blocked has now been shut down.

Furthermore, Yemen's pro-Iranian Houthi rebels have seized Red Sea coastal cities and islands in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the entrance of the Red Sea, advancing to within some 30 kilometers of a U.S. military base in Djibouti across the strait. Their momentum shows no signs of slowing down, having even struck a key Saudi inland air force base.

[Yahya Saree / Houthi Military Spokesperson: We have precisely targeted military facilities, including hangars, radar, runways, and ammunition depots at Saudi Arabia's King Khalid Air Base.]

In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's control remains unchanged, with a Panama-flagged very large crude carrier attacked and exploding.

Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter before the Iran war, finds its export routes blocked by Iran in Hormuz and by the Houthis in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Even if it attempts to send oil through Egypt's Suez Canal, the destruction of the pipelines has made it difficult to even bring crude oil to the Red Sea.

With the sharp drop in Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports compounding with Ukraine's attacks on Russian oil refineries, international oil prices have surpassed the 105 dollar mark.

In the United States in particular, diesel prices have surged by 68 percent since the war, hitting a record high of 6.23 dollars per gallon.

[Richard Meade / Editor-in-Chief, Lloyd's List: The lengthened detour routes and severe logistics disruptions are the exact reasons why oil prices are surging.]

Trump, who claimed that the soaring diesel prices were due to the Russia-Ukraine war, stated that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to halt attacks on energy facilities, but attacks on energy facilities by both sides, including areas densely populated with gas stations, have continued.

(Video by Kim Byung-jik)