# [WARNING] Saudi Megarefinery Still 30% Offline Until 2027 After Drone Strikes

*Wednesday, June 17, 2026 at 9:40 AM UTC — Hamer Intelligence Services Desk*

**Detected**: 2026-06-17T09:40:17.739Z (3h ago)
**Tags**: MARKET, energy, refining, MiddleEast, riskPremium
**Sources**: OSINT
**Permalink**: https://hamerintel.com/data/alerts/10842.md
**Source**: https://hamerintel.com/summaries

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**Summary**: TotalEnergies’ CEO confirms the large Saudi refinery previously hit by drones was struck three times and is operating at just 70% capacity, with full repairs unlikely before early 2027. This locks in a multi‑year loss of refining capacity and supports global product cracks despite a softer IEA oil demand outlook.

## Detail

1) What happened:
The CEO of TotalEnergies states that the major Saudi refinery recently attacked by drones suffered three strikes and is currently running at only 70% of capacity, with full repair not expected until early 2027. This converts what might have been seen as a temporary outage into a structural, multi‑year impairment of a key Middle Eastern refining asset.

2) Supply impact:
Assuming this is one of Saudi’s large integrated export refineries (scale on the order of 400–800 kb/d), a 30% sustained loss translates to roughly 120–240 kb/d of missing product output (gasoline, diesel, jet, and possibly petrochemical feedstocks) for about 18–24 months. Crude production itself may be redirected to other refineries or exported directly, but the bottleneck is conversion capacity located close to major export routes. In a market where the IEA is already flagging demand weakness due to the Iran war, this selectively tightens refined product balances rather than crude balances, particularly for middle distillates into Europe, Africa, and Asia.

3) Affected assets and direction:
Bullish for refining margins, particularly gasoil/diesel and jet cracks in Europe and Asia, and supportive for global product spreads versus crude. Beneficial for complex refiners in the Atlantic Basin and Asia that can capture higher margins; supportive for product tanker demand on alternative trade routes. Crude benchmarks may see a smaller directional impact due to offsetting demand downgrades, but the product side should see a more pronounced effect. Regional petrochemical chains could also face tighter feedstock supply at the margin.

4) Historical precedent:
The Abqaiq and Khurais attacks in 2019, and later storm‑related refinery outages on the US Gulf Coast, showed that multi‑month to multi‑year refining outages can significantly boost crack spreads and product time‑spreads even when crude supply is adequate or soft.

5) Duration:
Structural through at least early 2027. Barring accelerated repairs or capacity replacement elsewhere in the region, this is a persistent, not transitory, support for refined product margins and select tanker routes.

**AFFECTED ASSETS:** Gasoil futures (ICE), Diesel cracks vs Brent, Jet fuel cracks, Brent Crude, European refining equities, Product tanker equities
