 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today, we're going to discuss developments in the aftermath of attacks on two Aramco oil processing facilities in Saudi Arabia on September 14th. To talk more about this, we have with us Prabir Burqais. Hello, Prabir. Thank you for joining us. And as we know, the attacks took place at the Upkek and Khureyes facilities. And these are very important facilities for Aramco, for Saudi Arabia and even for global oil production and trade. And the Houthis have claimed that they were responsible for the attacks. And these, at least 10 drones are supposed to have been involved. So before we get into the logistics and the military capabilities involved, what do you think is likely to be the impact on trade and oil production in general? Well, as you would know, that the oil prices have risen by about $10 per barrel. So obviously, there is a significant impact in the short term. Both Saudis, as well as the United States, has released its strategic oil reserves to stabilize the price. But in spite of that, there is this spike that has taken place. This is not surprising considering that Saudis roughly produce 16% of the exportable oil in the world. And 550% of that oil has been taken out of the market. So we have in the exportable, tradable oil, we have really a drop of about 8%. So 10% spike in the oil price in the short term is not surprising. If the oil that Saudis were producing does come back quickly. And Saudis have said, they're going to restore about 25, 30% of that in a few days. And they've said in other two weeks, they'll come back to full production that they were doing earlier. If that is so, we'll have to see what the long term effect on the oil prices is. But there is this threat that if Houthis have done it once, they can do it again. So it does bring into question the safety and the security of the global oil trade, particularly if Saudis continue to be at war with Yemen, to which they have really had no blowback. They had economic consequences, yes, but they really did not face a major shall we say downturn for this war they have been conducting against Yemen for the last few years in which the Yemenis have been at the receiving end continuously, 18 million year starvation, 1 million very close to what would be called extreme starvation. And of course schools, colleges, hospitals, all of it that close, cholera outbreaks and so on. When you can go on about the consequences, it's a humanitarian disaster of a worst kind that we have had in the 21st century. But the Saudis didn't pay price for that except burning oil money. This time they are paying a price and it threatens also Aramco's IPO. Aramco has a profitability of 111 billion dollars last year. So if Aramco is at threat of its oil production, then Saudi economy is at threat and also Aramco's IPO, it's a much closer issue is also under threat. So I think this is a huge impact that it has shown the fragility of the shall we say the oil system and also Saudi Arabia's underpinning the system of oil production, the dollars and everything that we talk about underpinning of all of this was really Saudi Arabia's oil production. I think all of that is certainly threatened at least in the short term but could also be threatened in the longer term because I do not see what they can do to prevent these attacks if the military attacks that Houthis have claimed really have taken place as they have claimed it to be. If that is so, I would say that Saudi Arabia has very little defense against it and I don't see them being able to create a defense in the short term for it, whether they can create it at all in the long term is an open question. And this is also leading to speculation that the Saudis and even the US might get into talks with the Houthis but also talking about the Houthis military capabilities. We've discussed this quite a few times before but their claims were that 10 drones were involved in the attack in the two facilities and there's also been news that a cruise missile was also perhaps involved although it's not clear where it came from. So how do you see the advance of the Houthis military capabilities and right now what do you think they're capable of? Well, you know they have been hitting in Saudi Arabia for now some month, month and a half. They have also hit earlier in United Arab Emirates airports. They have already shown the capability of low cost drones and deploying them to hit at targets. Now, why the world is talking about cruise missiles coming from Iran or Iraq is not clear because if we look at what they've already displayed, they have displayed a range of missiles and drones which I think they displayed about four or five months back unveiled these missiles and drones that if we look at all of them the technologies involved do not appear to be anything substantially something that is beyond what would be what would be called do it yourself drone technologies. So there are three parts to this one is the flying platform itself the basically what we would call a drone which can carry explosives. Now if you look at that that you have a you need something which shoots this into the air so you need some client something to give it an initial impetus then you need fuel and a low cost jet engine which would then burn the fuel and take it forward. The Samad 3 it's basically a drone which had which took which can take off has a jet engine has petrol tanks which are called conformal tanks that means they're not drop tanks they continue to be there they allow you to extend the range but they are not aerodynamically they are such that the there's not too much drag so the aerodynamically they are good. So they have shown this that means they had a jet engine mounted on this drone for a longer term longer term flight and also this engine people have talked about it it's a check engine which is there which is again available of the shelf it can be bought it's a small engine and could use for a whole number of other purposes as well and if you want to manufacture it even manufacturing it is not that difficult. So if we look at that that was the the platform which was used so platform looks very much something doable may cost something like 2000 to 5000 dollars is a platform to build but not really more than that and depending on the amount of explosives it would carry and that also depends on the distance. The second is the guidance system now there are three kinds of guidance system what's called inertial navigation system that is not very accurate so it works in the short range range but not in the long range then there is the guidance system which uses satellite navigation the basically the GPS glonar system then this is a chipset which is cheaply available today it really comes from your mobile chipset so that chipset can be easily put in and there is a processor there so it's possible to use satellite navigation as well along with your inertial navigation system and the last part is how do you then conform to the terrain because if you fly low your the radar so there I mean say defense systems will not detect it defense radar will not detect it so if you want to make it like a cruise missile make it ground hugging then use a rail altimeter radar based altimeter by which you can actually track what you think the terrain is and again you can process a simple processor which maps the looks at the terrain from the altimeter and the radar can match what it is seeing with what it knows its path to be and therefore also see that it doesn't go too high or too low so these are all possible then of course you have to have a terminal system which takes it and makes it a weapon now this all of this gives you 10 feet to 30 feet accuracy so if you have a 10 feet to 30 feet accuracy if you have a big enough target like abacac or corress then this is not asking for too much to see how it delivers this payload and it seems that it could also have a fairly cheap terminal guidance system which is camera based again cameras are cheap cameras are available so all of these is something that Yemenis would have to have good software skills to do so now unfortunately for the Saudis Yemenis are known to have good computer skills and they have been reports in the press that they were quite surprised some few years back that Yemeni hackers were so good so this would seem to show that putting all of it together is not something out of the out of reach of the Yemeni or the Houthis the question is of course did they get know how from Iranians and they get drawn know how for Hezbollah that's all human knowledge and of course they're considering that the way Saudis have been threatening Iran has been a part of the coalition with Israel and the United States and the fact that the U.S. and Israel have been supporting Saudi Arabia I do not see what is the great violation of supposedly international law by Iranian supplying knowledge to Houthis or even components to Houthis and it's I think extremely hypocritical to charge Iran by fostering war because by arming Houthis with knowledge or even components while Saudis are in a war against the Houthis and the Yemenis so I think those kind of hypocrisy would take out what Yemenis are showing and the Houthis are showing essentially that if you put this impose this cost on us don't think you are getting away unscathed till now they had not been able to inflict pain they had some skirmishes some attacks but they really did not inflict pain this is the big one that this changes the context of war and two weeks back in duos clique we had discussed that asymmetric nature of the drone warfare is such that the Yemenis don't have to defeat the Saudis they have to inflict pain and show they can do it again and again and I think they have proven more than proven their point now and so this leaves us mainly with the possibility that the U.S. Saudi Israel alliance might actually have to consider making compromises and peace at specific areas especially Yemen if they want to actually preserve their alliance so to speak otherwise with the straight of hormones on one hand and with Saudi oil facilities on the other irrespective whether there's an alliance or not between Iran and the Houthis there is a possibility that the entire basis of this alliance could be in danger you see I think it's very important to understand what's happening in this whole area Hezbollah's have shown also capabilities which is certainly much higher than what the Houthis are showing they have not exchanged this they have not had exchanges with Israel on this count but they've brought down Israel's drones they have shown that they have rocketing rocketry skills rock missile capabilities which probably are much bigger than what the Houthis have so I think that is very much already established then we now see what the Houthis can do they have been bombed back by Saudis thanks to the United States UK and also France and other countries bombed back to virtually stone age in spite of that they're able to inflict this damage and Iran has shown that states are of hormones is something they still own and that makes it very difficult for countries like U.S. or others to do control the states of hormones without completely destroying Iran now is it possible to do that do that without a major damage to the U.S. itself in the region their basis and their other infrastructure their allies infrastructure these are all open to question so what it does happen is change the nature of the strategic balance so to say that it is not that there is strategic parity there isn't but the strategic balance ability to inflict pain and stand up still is I think what is changing the nature of these battles and it's very clear US had two weeks back said they would like to start talking to the Houthis Saudis still didn't show that urgency they started rethinking I think on their strategy but they were not really showing urgency whether this will bring them to an urgency or not we don't know Saudis are not famous for being good fighters in fact the the major fight they do is in the casinos in the west and so on so this does not show that they have the ability to stand up to what the Houthis are doing and the fact they've failed to destroy the Houthis with the alliance which was much stronger three years back that that now their ability to enter Yemen and take out the Houthi leadership doesn't seem to be there in fact UAE has already pulled out of the war against the Houthis Saudis are finding they are being increasingly abandoned by their mercenary troops I do not think Saudis can continue the war and till now it was the fact that they were not paying a price except in dollars in terms of buying arms they were not paying a higher price is the reason this continued now they see they have also to pay a price I think you are going to see within the next one month peace talks start how much the Houthis will extract as a price for the peace from the Saudis is open to question because Saudis are frankly open to huge reparation bill from Yemen if the Houthis press for the sale. Thank you Prabir that's all we have time for today keep watching news click