{"id":2578186,"date":"2026-03-10T12:53:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/iranian-drones-hit-largest-oil-refinery-in-the-middle-east\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T12:56:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:56:36","slug":"iranian-drones-hit-largest-oil-refinery-in-the-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/iranian-drones-hit-largest-oil-refinery-in-the-middle-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian drones hit largest oil refinery in the Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Firanian-drones-hit-largest-oil-refinery-in-the-middle-east%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2578186&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Iranian drones hit the Ruwais refinery in the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi), the site of one of the Middle East\u2019s largest oil facilities. A wave of nine ballistic missiles and 35 drones targeted the area; eight missiles were intercepted, one fell into the sea, and nine drones breached the UAE\u2019s air defenses. It was unclear how manny of the drones actually struck the refinery.<\/p>\n<p>The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company\u2019s Ruwais complex is a major oil hub,with the refinery\u2019s crude distillation unit capable of about 417,000 barrels per day,and the broader plant able to refine around 922,000 barrels per day. The attack prompted a shutdown of the refinery\u2019s unit and triggered a fire management response,though officials reported no injuries so far.<\/p>\n<p>The strike follows a broader pattern of Iranian attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure, with the UAE reporting it has faced extensive missile and drone salvos (hundreds of missiles and drones over time; many drone incursions breached defenses). The attack raises fears of global oil price volatility if damage proves significant, especially given the UAE\u2019s central role in regional energy production and export facilities.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts and officials warn that Iran could escalate by targeting oil export terminals in the Gulf, <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >possibly disrupting international oil trade<\/a>. In the meantime,there has been a notable decline in iran\u2019s drone launches in recent days,suggesting depleted capabilities after a period of intense activity.The episode underscores the ongoing risk to energy markets and the broader strategic tension surrounding the Iran conflict.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Iranian drones hit largest oil refinery in the Middle East<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2528270\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p>The largest <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/oil\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"292\">oil<\/a> refinery in the Middle East, located in the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/united-arab-emirates\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"215\">United Arab Emirates<\/a>, was hit by <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/iran\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"100\">Iranian<\/a> drones, boosting fears of a rise in oil prices.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, a wave of Iranian drones breached Emirati air defenses, striking Abu Dhabi National Oil Company&rsquo;s Ruwais refinery. The hit is one of the most significant targets struck by Iran since the beginning of the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/in_focus\/4485771\/all-politics-is-local-even-in-war\/\" type=\"post\" id=\"4485771\">war<\/a>, and could send out global shockwaves if the damage is significant enough.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/world\/4486353\/iranian-national-security-chief-threatens-trump-be-careful-get-eliminated-yourself\/\">Iranian National Security Chief threatens Trump: &#8216;Be careful not to get eliminated yourself&#8217;<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/world\/4486264\/iran-war-parliament-leader-vows-military-response\/\">Iran parliamentary leader vows military response in sign regime won&#8217;t back down<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/4486236\/netanyahu-says-up-to-iranian-people-to-throw-off-tyranny-regime\/\">Netanyahu says it&rsquo;s up to Iranian people to &lsquo;throw off the yoke of tyranny&rsquo; of regime<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>&ldquo;The competent authorities in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi are dealing with a fire that broke out in one of the facilities within the Ruwais Industrial Complex, resulting from a drone attack, with no injuries recorded so far,&rdquo; the Abu Dhabi Media Office <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ADMediaOffice\/status\/2031329186158358790?s=20\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ADMediaOffice\/status\/2031329186158358790?s=20\">said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/in_focus\/4476629\/trump-closed-gap-rhetoric-action-iran\/\"><strong>IN FOCUS: TRUMP CLOSED THE GAP BETWEEN RHETORIC AND ACTION ON IRAN<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Emirati Ministry of Defense <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/modgovae\/status\/2031357302004133965?s=20\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/modgovae\/status\/2031357302004133965?s=20\">said that the country came under fire<\/a> from nine ballistic missiles and 35 drones on Tuesday. Eight of the missiles were intercepted, and one fell harmlessly into the sea. The UAE was less fortunate with the drones, however. Nine breached the country&rsquo;s air defenses. It&rsquo;s unknown whether all the drones hit the Ruwais refinery or other targets.<\/p>\n<p>Industry monitor <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bairdmaritime.com\/shipping\/ports\/adnoc-shuts-ruwais-refinery-after-drone-strike\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/www.bairdmaritime.com\/shipping\/ports\/adnoc-shuts-ruwais-refinery-after-drone-strike\">IIR Energy said<\/a> ADNOC shut down the refinery&rsquo;s lone crude distillation unit, which refines 417,000 barrels per day, and will undertake a plantwide safety shutdown in accordance with procedure.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-canva wp-block-embed-canva\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Major Middle East oil producers are cutting production\" src=\"https:\/\/www.canva.com\/design\/DAHDjxSVkVE\/Ap4nc__qWUBtVA9hQ2ZyiA\/view?embed&amp;meta\" height=\"464\" width=\"696\" style=\"border: none; border-radius: 8px; width: 696px; height: 464px;\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" allow=\"fullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The entire Ruwais plant can refine up to 922,000 barrels of oil per day, according to <em>Reuters<\/em>. The plant is the central hub for a variety of the UAE&rsquo;s economic operations, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/arkansas-gas-prices-on-the-rise\/\" title=\"Gas prices in Arkansas are increasing\">turning crude oil<\/a> into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, fertilizer, chemicals, and other products.<\/p>\n<p>ARAMCO&rsquo;s Ras Tanura refinery in Saudi Arabia, the kingdom&rsquo;s largest, was struck last week and knocked offline. ARAMCO CEO Amin Nasser said the plant was in the process of being restarted.<\/p>\n<p>The UAE has been one of the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/world\/4482127\/iran-spray-pray-strategy-widen-battlefield-spread-consequences\/\">heaviest hit countries<\/a> by the war with Iran &mdash; the UAE&rsquo;s MOD said it has been targeted by 262 ballistic missiles, eight cruise missiles, and 1,475 drones. All cruise missiles were intercepted, and just two ballistic missiles hit targets within the UAE, but 90 drones breached its air defenses.<\/p>\n<p>A failure to plan properly for the drone swarms Iran has launched at countries across the Middle East has turned into Washington&rsquo;s biggest headache, and its biggest regret, U.S. officials told <em>Axios<\/em>. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered Ukrainian counter-drone technology to the United States in August, but President Donald Trump didn&rsquo;t seem to take the proposal seriously.<\/p>\n<p>The drone attacks on Emirati and Saudi oil infrastructure are bad news for Washington, and show Tehran is pursuing the nightmare scenario of ultimate oil industry disruption in an effort to pressure the U.S. to end the war.<\/p>\n<p>A Feb. 18 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, featuring energy analyst Clayton&nbsp;Seigle,&nbsp;outlined several hypothetical scenarios for how the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-stonewalling-gop-asking-about-iran-sanctions-report\/\" title=\"Biden Stonewalling GOP Asking About Iran Sanctions: Report\">global oil trade<\/a> could be disrupted by Iran. One such scenario involved Iran targeting the oil industries of the Gulf countries, including producing fields, gathering and processing nodes, or oil export terminals. Seigle told the&nbsp;<em>Washington Examiner<\/em>&nbsp;on Friday that such a move would amount to &ldquo;a very severe step.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve done that only in a very minor way so far, with the LNG facility in Qatar and also one of the refineries in Saudi Arabia, but not really the oil export terminals so far. So I would say that the Iranians have not yet played that card,&rdquo; Seigle said. &ldquo;They have been hitting those countries in retaliation for having them host the United States offensive. I think that&rsquo;s still to come, that the Iranians may choose to play the attack the export facilities card. I would not be at all surprised to see that happen.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The targeting of ADNOC&rsquo;s Ruwais refinery seems to bear out this scenario and could send oil prices skyrocketing after their fall yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>In better news for the U.S., the past few days have seen a <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/IbrahimJalalYE\/status\/2031239731082592536?s=20\" type=\"link\" id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/IbrahimJalalYE\/status\/2031239731082592536?s=20\">collapse in the number of drones<\/a> Iran has been able to lob at its adversaries. After consistently launching just above 100 drones per day at the UAE from March 5-8, the total plummeted to just 18 on Monday, and then 35 on Tuesday. Launches at the UAE peaked on March 1 at 332 drones.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/energy\/4484364\/iran-war-impact-oil-price-more\/\">WAR WITH IRAN WILL IMPACT OIL PRICES MUCH MORE THAN THE 1980S CRISES<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The UAE wasn&rsquo;t alone in the decline, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps only launching 55 drones on Monday, a massive decline from the nearly 800 launched on the first day of the war.<\/p>\n<p>The decline, almost as drastic as the collapse in missile salvos, reflects the depleted capabilities of Iran after suffering through the most intensive air campaign of the 21st century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iranian drones strike UAE&#8217;s Ruwais refinery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2653,"featured_media":2578187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP26065621269714.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651,538],"tags":[70371,75474,74929,73799,73796],"class_list":["post-2578186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","category-washington-examiner","tag-breaking-news-2","tag-drone-attack-2","tag-iranian-drones","tag-middle-east-2","tag-oil-refinery"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP26065621269714.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2578186"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2578192,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578186\/revisions\/2578192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2578187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2578186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2578186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2578186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}