Saudi Aramco tells staff to evacuate Dhahran headquarters

Saudi Aramco has told staff to evacuate its Dhahran headquarters and work remotely, six people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday, a day after two people were killed in an attack on a nearby airport. The move marked the first time Aramco had asked staff to evacuate its headquarters since the start of the Iran war. Aramco did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis caused extensive damage to the company’s headquarters earlier this month when they struck the building, with fire spreading across several floors, three people with direct knowledge told Reuters. The facility hosts an operations centre, which helps the world’s largest oil company oversee onshore and offshore oil rigs, refineries, export terminals and thousands of kilometres of pipelines. It was unclear what the reason for the evacuation was. Two people were killed and eight injured in an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil hub of Dammam on Wednesday evening, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said on Thursday. Dammam lies around 15 km (9 miles) north of Dhahran. Separately, two people were killed on Wednesday after Saudi air defences intercepted a drone that was attempting to hit a facility at Aramco’s Shaybah oilfield, which is located hundreds of kilometres to the southeast, the energy ministry said. Saudi Arabia has responded to Houthi attacks with a wave of strikes on missile launcher sites, vowing to protect the kingdom, and says it has intercepted many ballistic missiles fired by the group. The kingdom has been seeking wider support from allies for its campaign against the Houthis and to help it ward off their missile and drone attacks. Washington, Saudi Arabia’s strongest ally and longtime security guarantor, has so far rebuffed Saudi efforts to bring it directly into the war against the Houthis. The US State Department ordered some diplomats and family members to depart from its missions in Saudi Arabia and plans to withdraw family members from a number of other US missions in the region, US officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Washington had returned some diplomatic personnel to the region in recent months after many were pulled out when Tehran launched attacks on US facilities after the US-Israeli war on Iran began in late February.