Houthi war reaches Dammam and Aramco

Dammam is hit and Aramco clears its headquarters: Saudi Arabia’s east is no longer the safe side

A Houthi attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam on the evening of Wednesday 21 October killed two people and wounded eight, Reuters reported. One of the dead was a Saudi citizen and the other an Indian resident, Gulf News reported, citing GACA, Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority. On Thursday GACA said: “The authority confirmed that airport operations have resumed and air traffic has returned to normal.”

The airport reopened fast. That is not the point. The point is where it happened.

Our view: until this week, Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province was the side of the kingdom forwarders treated as safe. Riyadh was being hit. Red Sea shipping was under threat. Dammam and Dhahran were the back door. That back door is now in range. From here, we think forwarders should plan for any Saudi gateway, air or sea, to close for a day or a week with no warning.

A single day in the Eastern Province

The Dammam strike was one of several events in about 24 hours.

Aramco told staff to evacuate its Dhahran headquarters and work remotely, six people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Reuters said the reason was unclear, and Aramco did not immediately comment. AFP sources, quoted by Gulf News, said that “Essential staff at the headquarters of Saudi oil giant Aramco in the country’s east were told to evacuate Thursday”. Most staff had already been working from home since the Houthis hit the Dhahran site the week before. Reuters said Houthi strikes earlier this month caused extensive damage to the headquarters.

Further south, debris from an intercepted drone killed two people and injured two more, Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry said. The drone was “targeting an oil facility,” and the ministry named the target area as the Shaybah oil field near the UAE border. It did not say who launched it.

Then came the diplomatic signal. “All American staff and their families have been ordered to depart from the US embassy in Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source told AFP. Families of US embassy staff in the UAE, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain were also told to leave, the same source said.

Markets moved. Saudi Arabia’s benchmark share index fell 2.5% on Thursday, and Brent crude rose to about $111.88 a barrel after touching $112.55, its highest since 18 May, Reuters reported.

The Houthis, for their part, said Saudi attacks on Yemen had killed or wounded 562 people since mid-July, according to Reuters. Their spokesman Yahya Saree also said Houthi forces had not carried out any operations “deep” in Saudi territory, Gulf News reported. That claim sits awkwardly beside a strike on an airport on the Gulf coast.

Riyadh is open, but only just

There is one piece of better news. Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, shut since 10 October after repeated Houthi strikes, has partly reopened.

The opening is narrow. Authorities now allow flights with prior permission. “A limited number of Saudi airlines took off and landed at the country’s main airport,” Gulf News reported on 22 October. Saudia and flynas flew on 21 October, according to FlightAware data cited in the same report.

Foreign airlines are not coming back yet. “Major carriers, including Lufthansa and Air France, have canceled flights through mid-November,” Gulf News reported.

Riyadh is not fully closed any more: Saudi carriers are flying in and out under a permission system. Our call is that Riyadh stays on these restricted, prior-permission operations, with no European belly capacity back, until at least mid-November. Belly capacity is the cargo space in the hold of passenger planes. Saudi airlines have shown they can operate, but the foreign airlines that bring most of the long-haul belly space have already pulled their schedules through mid-November.

Why the east matters more than it looks

To see why Dammam matters, look at how sea freight reaches Saudi Arabia right now.

The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively blocked to most commercial shipping since 28 February, according to a 30 July analysis by Tradlinx. That means ships cannot easily reach Dammam’s seaport, which sits inside the Gulf. Containers for the Eastern Province have been going the long way round: into Jeddah on the Red Sea, then onto trucks across the country. Tradlinx reported that Maersk moves Saudi cargo from Jeddah on to Riyadh and Dammam, and that Hapag-Lloyd moves cargo to Dammam or Jubail. There is no working rail link between Jeddah and the Gulf, Tradlinx noted. The roughly 950 km Jeddah–Riyadh rail land bridge is still incomplete, so this depends mainly on trucks.

Jeddah itself is under pressure. The Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia on 20 July. Their email to shipping companies, reported by Reuters via Al-Monitor, said: “Vessels are banned from loading or discharging cargo at or from any Saudi ports”. It added that violating ships “may be subject to targeting in any location within the operational reach of the Yemeni Armed Forces.” Energy Intelligence reported on 23 July that the Houthis had struck at least one Saudi-owned vessel. Tradlinx said enforcement so far had targeted Saudi-linked tankers, not container ships.

Carriers have already tightened the rules at Jeddah. Hapag-Lloyd says transit cargo via Jeddah to the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Iraq may move only “subject to applicable customs, terminal, documentation and clearance requirements.” Since 1 August, customers must arrange their own clearance and onward movement. Hapag-Lloyd also asks for a letter of indemnity, a written promise from the customer, that the cargo will be cleared and moved on within 15 days of discharge. Storage and delay costs fall on the shipper. For cargo booked to Jeddah with a consignee outside Saudi Arabia, Maersk’s position, as quoted by Tradlinx, is: “Not discharged at Jeddah. Routed to the consignee’s country via Khor Fakkan.”

So the Eastern Province already depended on a long, fragile chain: a Red Sea port under blockade threat, then a cross-country truck. Air freight into Dammam was the quick way around all that. On Wednesday night, that route was hit too.

The cost side is rising too. Iranian attacks on shipping and the threat of further escalation have increased “freight rates, war-risk insurance premiums and other costs,” Gulf News reported, in a report on International Energy Agency figures.

What forwarders should do now

First, split Saudi air freight across gateways. If a shipment matters, do not route it through one airport. Use Dammam, Riyadh under Saudi carriers, and the UAE with a truck leg, so a one-night closure does not strand everything.

Second, assume Riyadh belly space from Europe is not there until mid-November. Shipments that used to ride in the hold of Lufthansa or Air France passenger flights need another plan. That means freighters, Saudi carriers, or flying into the UAE and trucking across the border.

Third, shorten quote validity on all Saudi-bound air and sea freight. War-risk insurance premiums are an extra charge insurers add for ships and cargo in conflict zones. Those premiums and fuel are both moving. With Brent near $112, a 30-day air quote is a bet.

Fourth, read the small print at Jeddah. Under Hapag-Lloyd’s rules, a consignee who cannot clear within 15 days pays the storage. Make sure your Saudi customer knows that before the box is loaded.

Fifth, watch the US departure order. When Washington pulls embassy families out of the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain as well as Saudi Arabia, it is telling you how it rates the risk across the whole Gulf. Dubai, Doha and Bahrain are the hubs forwarders are leaning on to reach Saudi Arabia. We do not expect them to close. But insurers and airline security teams read the same signals, and that tends to show up in surcharges first.

Our calls

Our call on Riyadh: King Khalid International stays on restricted, prior-permission operations, with no European belly capacity back, until at least mid-November.

On air rates: over the four weeks to mid-November, we expect Saudi-bound air rates via Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Dammam to rise, as freight squeezes through fewer gateways. Wednesday’s strike on Dammam makes that more likely, not less.

At sea: if Saudi Arabia launches a ground offensive against the Houthis, we expect at least one major container carrier to pause or drop a Jeddah call by early December.

Sources

• \
• Gulf News — Middle East war: Trump accuses Iran of raising oil prices as Saudi Aramco evacuates headquarters amid Houthi attacks, updated 23 Oct 2026 \
• The Business Standard (Reuters) — Saudi Aramco tells staff to evacuate Dhahran as clashes with Yemen’s Houthis continue, 22 Oct 2026 \
• Al-Monitor (Reuters) — Houthis warn shipping companies to avoid Saudi ports, email shows, 21 Jul 2026 \
• Energy Intelligence — Houthis Launch ‘Embargo’ With Attack on Saudi Tanker, 23 Jul 2026 \
• Tradlinx — Where Your Gulf Container Actually Discharges Now, 30 Jul 2026 \
• Hapag-Lloyd — Saudi Arabia: Update on transit shipments via Jeddah to the Upper Gulf, Aug 2026