A Houthi missile strike set part of Saudi Aramco's Dhahran headquarters ablaze Tuesday, as Brent crude held near $106 and Bitcoin (BTC) traders braced for U.S. inflation data.
Key Points:
- A missile strike set part of Aramco's Dhahran headquarters on fire, with reports of damage across several floors.
- Brent crude hovered near $106 a barrel as attacks on Saudi energy sites and Hormuz shipping mounted.
- Bitcoin held near $83,450 as traders weighed U.S. inflation data due Wednesday.
Aramco Dhahran Strike
Saudi Arabia's energy ministry said a limited fire broke out at an Aramco administrative building in Dhahran late Tuesday, adding that authorities responded and no one was hurt. A company source said a ballistic missile struck an office tower in the headquarters complex, damaging its top three floors, though the full extent of the damage remains unclear.
Other accounts point to heavier damage. Three people with direct knowledge of the matter described extensive damage at the headquarters, with a fire that spread across several floors of the building. A fourth person said the blaze was still burning in the early hours of Wednesday and that some functions had shifted to Aramco's global offices.
The complex houses about 11,000 residents across 58 square kilometers, and Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree had named the headquarters as a possible target hours before the strike, warning of a response to Saudi-led strikes on Sanaa. Aramco did not immediately comment.
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Brent, Bitcoin Fallout
No loss of oil output has been reported. Even so, Brent climbed above $106 a barrel in Asian trading on Wednesday, as Iranian threats to step up attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz added to worries over Gulf supply. Adam Baron, a fellow at the New America think tank who studies Yemen and the Gulf, said the strike could be a warning or an early sign of more attacks to come.
For crypto, the risk runs through inflation. Bitcoin traded near $83,450 on Wednesday after a brief spike to $84,000, as economists expected annual U.S. consumer price growth to quicken to 3.6% from 3.4% in the last reading before the Federal Reserve's Oct. 28 rate decision.
Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research, warned that a hotter reading could set off another wave of liquidations as Treasury yields and Fed expectations adjust, since recent selling may not have cleared all the riskier leveraged bets.
The Dhahran strike caps a fast escalation. On Oct. 3, the Houthis claimed a missile and drone attack that left Aramco's Riyadh refinery burning, a week after saying they had also targeted Aramco facilities near Yanbu on the Red Sea coast. Fighting over the past week has killed at least 18 people in the kingdom, while drone attacks earlier this year shut Aramco's Ras Tanura refinery, the country's largest, for 16 days.
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