Saudi Arabia opened a weeklong gathering of energy ministers and oil executives in Riyadh on Sunday, a day after a Houthi missile attack on the capital’s main airport killed 12 people and injured 309.
The Saudi Energy Ministry said the 25th World Petroleum Council Energy Congress had begun and would run through Thursday. The 17th ministerial of the International Energy Forum is being held alongside it, as part of what the kingdom calls Riyadh Energy Week. The forum’s 68 member countries, among them Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States, account for more than 90 percent of global oil and gas supply and demand, Al Jazeera reported.
Not every host is in the room. Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Italy’s energy minister, said on Friday that he would join the ministerial by video rather than travel to Riyadh, The National reported. Nigeria, the other co-host, is sending a representative.
Saturday’s strike on King Khalid International Airport was the third there in a week and the deadliest attack on the kingdom in more than a decade, CNN reported. The two earlier strikes killed four people and badly damaged a Saudi commercial plane parked on the tarmac. Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation said the dead were four Saudi citizens, two Bangladeshi residents and one resident each from the United States, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine and Sudan.
About 260 flights were canceled and 219 delayed on Saturday, according to Flightradar24 data cited by The National. Organizers steered delegates to other ways in, including by road from Dammam. A projectile hit near King Fahd Airport there on Saturday, a representative of the Saudi-led coalition said.
Reporters won’t see much of the ministers. A spokeswoman for the Energy Ministry said only journalists invited directly by the forum could cover the opening remarks and that no live broadcast pool had been arranged. “As you are aware, the ministerial plenary will be held behind closed doors,” she said.
The coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen promised a firm response. Its spokesman, Turki al-Malki, said on X that the attack was a war crime under international humanitarian law. President Trump said he would consider joining Saudi strikes on the Houthis, The Times of Israel reported, and Secretary General Antonio Guterres of the UN condemned the attack.
The ministers meet as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran squeezes the routes that carry Gulf energy to the world. Before the war, about 27 percent of seaborne oil trade and almost 20 percent of liquefied natural gas trade passed through the Strait of Hormuz. Traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb strait and the Suez Canal has also fallen, pushing some cargoes around Africa. Gulf producers have since restored flows through Hormuz to near 80 percent of prewar levels.
“That’s probably the first time we’ve really seen a major constriction of a chokepoint,” Richard Matthews, director of consultancy and research at Gibson Shipbrokers in London, told Al Jazeera. What sets Hormuz apart, Mr. Matthews said, is that “there is no alternative maritime route. There are some pipelines, but there’s no alternative.”
Eritrea and Madagascar each get about 90 percent of their oil from the Middle East, followed by Pakistan at 78 percent and Japan and Kenya at 77 percent. Gas is harder to replace. South Korea draws 31 percent of its gas from the region, India 29 percent, Pakistan 27 percent and Taiwan 26 percent.
The emergency stockpiles that have cushioned the shock are thinning. The International Energy Agency released a record 400 million barrels in March and is preparing to release another 100 million barrels of crude and diesel, though some of that may be March oil that has not yet reached the market. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest level since 1982.
“Estimates suggest less than 6 billion barrels of commercial inventories remain today with the vast majority not practically available,” Amin Nasser, Saudi Aramco’s chief executive, said at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London on Oct. 5. Before this year’s releases, China held an estimated 1.4 billion barrels in reserve, the United States 413 million and Japan 263 million.
A storm in the Gulf of Mexico and the attacks in Saudi Arabia are keeping oil above $100 a barrel. Riyadh is scheduled to host the Future Investment Initiative from Oct. 26 to 29, and The National reported that it will go ahead with added security.