Update on Houthi drone attack today on Saudi oil facility and oilfield

Note that an AP report published at 7:29 pm ET, and a report from Oil Price, claim that the other Houthi target was the Khurais oil field, not processing facilities near the oil field as other reports I've seen maintain. Still a fog-of-war situation.

From RT, today:

Saudi Arabia confirms about half of Aramco's production interrupted due to drone strikes... Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said the attacks crippled the facilities, forcing Saudi Aramco to partially halt crude and gas production, but the company was working on recovering the lost quantities and would give an update within 48 hours. The decrease in supplies would be partially compensated through the company’s oil reserves, the minister promised. ...

From WSJ via SST: 

Saudi Arabia is shutting down half of its oil production after drones attacked the world’s largest oil processing facility in the kingdom, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The closure will impact almost five million barrels of crude production a day, about 5% of the world’s daily oil production, the WSJ reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

For background see Houthi Drone Attacks on Saudi Aramco Oil Production Halt 5.7 Million Barrels Daily - Saudi Minister; Sputnik

The group attacked the Abqaiq and Khurais oil refineries with 10 drones, the biggest Houthi operation within Saudi territory to date

The Abqaiq facility is the largest in the world, but from this Oil Price report, it seems that the other target, Khurais, is an oil field not a processing facility, but we await clarification from the Saudis.
SST's report on the strike includes Colonel Pat Lang's commentary and several interesting remarks in the SST comment section. The Colonel observed:

Watch the al-jazeera video linked below. Some time ago, an "expert" on toy UAVs expressed an opinion on my FB page that the Houthis must be trucking these drones up to within a few miles of the target before flying them. This attack would seem to exclude this possibility.  The question of the size of the payload also is intriguing because of the amount of damage inflicted, and then there is the matter of the guidance system. 

This is a game changer.  pl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6BgA54VZBk

Pundita note: The Al Jazeera video was posted May 14, 2019, in reference to two Houthi drone strikes on an east-west Aramco Saudi oil pipeline, but the video is helpful in conveying the size of the Abqaiq facility and the damage that today's drone strike did. 

As to how today's strikes were able to pierce the massive oil storage tanks, that's a good question, which an SST reader discusses in the comment section although the answer is still speculative.

As to Prince Abdulaziz, he's the new Saudi energy minister, and according to this Reuters report, a hawk on cutting OPEC oil production to keep oil prices, or at least OPEC,  from collapsing. On September 13 -- the day before the stunning Houthi drone attacks --Forbes reported, Opec Slides Closer To Collapse As An Oil Glut Overpowers The Oil Price.

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