Saudi Arabia's energy minister has said that more than half of country's daily crude oil production that was kcked out by an attack h been recovered and that production capacity at its targeted plants would be fully restored by end of month.

Aramco says half of daily production recovered 

"Where would you find a company in this whole world that went through such a devastating attack and came out like a phoenix?" Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Tuesday about state-owned Saudi Aramco, which was target of attacks. His question to reporters, many of m Saudi, drew applause. state-run company's ability to quickly recover from an attack of this magnitude on its most important processing facility highlights t only its resilience but its importance as kingdom's crown jewel.

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Drone attack on Aramco

attack early Saturday struck a Saudi oil field and world's largest crude oil processing plant in kingdom's eastern region, taking out 5.7 million barrels of crude oil production per day for kingdom, or about 5 percent of world's daily production. Prince Abdulaziz said Aramco will hour its commitments to its customers this month by drawing from its reserves of crude oil and offering ditional crude production from or oil fields. He said production capacity would reach up to 11 million barrels a day by end of September and 12 million barrels in vember. He said production at Abqaiq processing facility is currently at 2 million barrels per day.

His briefing to reporters was highly anticipated around world, with oil prices spiking more than 14 percent on Monday on first day of tring after attacks on Saudi Arabia. It was biggest single-day jump in years due to damaging attack. Following reports of how quickly kingdom could restore production, oil prices fell on Tuesday. Brent, international benchmark, was down 6 percent to USD 64.89 a barrel. US oil was down 5.4 percent to USD 59.50. attack also took out 2 billion cubic feet of daily gas production.

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Consequences of Attack

Aramco, Saudi oil company targeted, said workers were wounded in attack. Iranian-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen, which Saudi Arabia are at war with, claimed responsibility, saying drones were launched in attack. war in Yemen, Arab region's poorest country, has sparked world's worst humanitarian crisis and killed tens of thousands of people, with many of those deaths blamed on Saudi coalition warplanes. Saudi Arabia, however, has claimed attack did t come from Yemen and said initial investigations show Iranian weapons were used. kingdom, though, has t yet said where attack was launched from or what kind of weapons were involved.

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US blames Iran

US has me similar allegations, going so far as to say attack may have been launched from Iran itself or nearby Iraq, where Iran has powerful proxy militias on ground. Iran has denied charges. Trump declared Monday it "looks" like Iran was behind explosive attack on Saudi oil facilities. But he stressed that military retaliation was t yet on table in response to strike against a key US Mideast ally. Trump, alternating between aggressive and nviolent reactions, said US could respond "with an attack many, many times larger" but also "I'm t looking at options right w." Earlier, he h said US was "locked and loed." He also said impact of oil production shorts would t be significant on US, which is a net energy exporter.

American Automobile Association, kwn as AAA, said Americans can expect local pump prices to start to increase this week by as much 25 cents per gallon throughout September, but that how long higher price lasts for depended on how quickly Saudi Arabia could restore production. attack was among most serious escalations in tensions in Persian Gulf in recent months. crisis stems from President Donald Trump's decision to pull US out of 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. He also re-imposed and escalated sanctions on Iran that sent country's ecomy into freefall, including targeting its oil exports.

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Iran denies claims

Iran's supreme leer said Tuesday "re will be talks with US at any level". His remarks appear to end all speculation about a possible US-Iran meeting between two countries' presidents at UN later this month. Iranian state TV quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who's been personally sanctioned by Trump ministration, as saying US wants to prove its "maximum pressure policy" against Iran is successful. "In return, we have to prove that policy is t worth a penny for Iranian nation," Khamenei said. "That's why all Iranian officials, from president and foreign minister to all ors have anunced that we do t negotiate (with U.S.) eir bilaterally or multilaterally," he said.

re h been reports about a possible meeting between Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, during upcoming U.N. General Assembly next week in New York. One US official, speaking on condition of anymity to discuss internal deliberations, said US was w considering dispatching ditional military resources to Gulf but that decisions h been me. In recent months, US has boosted its military presence with an ditional aircraft carrier in area, as well as fighter jets, bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and air defenses