Saudi Arabia’s bourse slumps after oil facility attacks

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s shares slumped at the start of trading on Sunday, the first session after drone attacks on two major oil facilities knocked out more than half the OPEC kingpin’s production.

The Tadawul All-Shares Index, which tracks the Arab world’s largest capital market, sank three per cent, shedding some 200 points in the first few minutes before regaining some of the losses.

Just under one hour into the session, TASI was down 1.50 per cent at 7,715 points.

The key energy sector plunged 4.7 per cent, while the telecom and banking sectors each slid three per cent.

The market was also affected by an announcement from the Saudi Basic Industries Co. one of the world’s largest petrochemicals producers, that the industry faced a shortage of raw materials.

It did not name the reason but said the issue arose on Saturday — the day of the drone attack.

Other bourses in the Gulf also dropped. Dubai Financial Market was down 1.1 per cent, Abu Dhabi and Qatar markets declined 0.4 per cent each, while Kuwait shares sank 0.8 per cent and Bahrain’s bourse slid 0.9 per cent. 

Oman’s shares were flat.

Explosives-laden drones struck the processing plants at Abqaiq and Khurais in the Eastern Province early on Saturday morning, knocking out some 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil production and around 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas output.

The Abqaiq plant handles some 7 million bpd of crude oil and billions of cubic feet of natural gas.

State-owned energy giant Aramco in March acquired 70 per cent of SABIC, the largest capitalised firm on the Saudi market, for $69.1 billion.