Aramco shuts its 400,000 bpd Jazan refinery after a missile strike; restart targeted for mid-August

Reuters reported on Tuesday, 28 July 2026 (6 Mordad 1405), citing a note from the consultancy IIR, that Saudi Aramco shut down its 400,000 barrel per day Jazan refinery on 27 July (5 Mordad). The shutdown followed an attack by Yemeni forces on Aramco facilities on Saturday 25 July (3 Mordad).

According to the note, the attack damaged the plant's Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle complex and its tank farm area. That complex supplies the electricity and steam the refinery's processes require, and its loss effectively halts the whole unit. IIR estimated that repairs and a restart of the refinery would tentatively be completed by 15 August 2026 (24 Mordad).

Jazan is Saudi Arabia's fifth largest refinery and sits on the Red Sea coast, the route Riyadh had been using as an export alternative while the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted. The outage, alongside earlier reports of a sharp fall in Saudi tanker movements in the Red Sea, narrows the kingdom's refining capacity and its export options at the same time, a variable that bears on global refined product prices and on the currency earnings of exporters in the region.