Drone Attacks Set Fires at Kuwait’s Mina Al-Ahmadi and Mina Abdullah Refineries
Yemen Herald News 
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said two of the country’s refineries were struck by drones on 19 March 2026, with fires breaking out at both sites. The state oil company reported the attacks separately over the course of the day, first at the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery and later at Mina Abdullah, both of which are operated by the Kuwait National Petroleum Company.
At Mina Al-Ahmadi the strike caused what the corporation described as a limited fire in one of the operational units. KPC said there were no injuries and that the blaze was contained under established safety protocols, with emergency and rapid response teams deployed immediately. The second attack, at Mina Abdullah later the same day, also started a fire, and the company again reported no casualties.
KPC said precautionary measures had been applied to safeguard staff and installations, and a number of affected units were shut down as a precaution. Taking processing trains offline is standard practice after any fire at a refinery, but it carries a direct throughput cost, and repeated shutdowns of this kind were among the more consequential economic effects of the campaign on Gulf producers.
Refinery fires are hazardous in ways that headline damage assessments tend to understate. Process units hold hydrocarbons at high temperature and pressure, and a fire in one unit can propagate through connected piping if it is not isolated quickly. That KPC reported both blazes contained without injuries points to functioning emergency systems rather than to the attacks having been trivial, and the company’s insistence on protocol in its public statements was aimed as much at reassuring the workforce as the market.
The two plants are central to Kuwait’s downstream sector. Mina Al-Ahmadi is one of the country’s principal refineries and sits on the Gulf coast south of Kuwait City alongside the main crude export terminal; Mina Abdullah lies further down the same stretch of coast. Together with the newer Al-Zour complex they account for the great majority of Kuwaiti refining capacity, and the concentration of that capacity along a short coastal strip is a structural vulnerability.
This was not an isolated incident for Mina Al-Ahmadi. The refinery was hit again in the early hours of the following day, and by that point it had been attacked three times in a little over two weeks. The repetition suggested deliberate targeting of a specific facility rather than opportunistic strikes on whatever energy infrastructure was reachable.
The attacks came as Iran widened its campaign against energy sites in the Gulf Arab states. Reporting at the time linked the escalation to Israel’s bombing of Iran’s South Pars offshore gas field in the Persian Gulf days earlier — a strike on the single largest asset in Iran’s own gas sector. The pattern that followed, with refineries and processing hubs across the Gulf coming under drone attack, was widely read as a response in kind.
Kuwait was one of several Gulf states reporting attacks over the same period. The United Arab Emirates said its Habshan gas facility and the Bab oil field had been targeted in the same week, and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain also reported strikes. Qatar dealt with fires in the Ras Laffan industrial area, the hub of its liquefied natural gas industry.
Kuwait was one of several Gulf states reporting attacks that week. The UAE said its Habshan gas facility and the Bab oil field had been targeted, and Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain also reported strikes. Qatar dealt with fires in the Ras Laffan industrial area, the hub of its liquefied natural gas industry.
Kuwait also had to weigh how much to disclose. State oil companies across the Gulf were balancing an obligation to inform markets against a reluctance to publish damage assessments that would help an attacker calibrate the next strike. KPC’s statements during this period were consistently brief, confirming that a fire had occurred and that it had been contained, without detailing which units were affected or for how long they would stay offline.
That calculus is what gave a cheap one-way attack drone its leverage. A drone costing a fraction of a percent of a processing train’s value can force a precautionary shutdown lasting days, and the cumulative effect across several facilities and states was substantial even where physical damage was limited.
For Yemen the consequences were felt through price and freight rather than politics. Yemen imports almost all of its refined fuel, and the country’s supply runs through the same regional market and the same shipping lanes that the attacks were disrupting. Elevated war-risk insurance premiums and rerouting costs across the Gulf and the Red Sea feed into landed fuel prices at Yemeni ports, and from there into the cost of water pumping, transport and electricity generation.
Kuwait, like its neighbours, framed its response as defensive and continued to press the case internationally. The Security Council had adopted Resolution 2817 on 11 March 2026, condemning in the strongest terms what it called unprovoked missile and drone attacks by Iran against Gulf Cooperation Council states and Jordan; the refinery strikes came a week after its adoption.
Kuwait, like its neighbours, framed its response as defensive and continued to press the case internationally. The Security Council had adopted Resolution 2817 on 11 March 2026, condemning what it called unprovoked missile and drone attacks by Iran against Gulf Cooperation Council states and Jordan; the refinery strikes came a week later.
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