France will send troops to protect the key oil port of Saudi Arabia

France will send servicemen and air defense systems to Saudi Arabia to protect the Yanbu area on the Red Sea coast — one of the key hubs of Saudi oil exports. French President Emmanuel Macron said this on September 24 in an interview with TF1 and France 2.

According to Macron, the agreement with Riyadh has already been finalized. The French side will send military personnel, radar equipment and defensive systems to Saudi Arabia.

»We will send military assets, that is, soldiers, radars and defense systems, to protect this site — not to intervene in any conflict, but to protect this site,« — declared the French president.

Macron stressed that the mission will be purely defensive in nature. France does not intend to join Saudi Arabia's combat actions against the Houthis in Yemen.

Yanbu has become particularly important for the global oil market after a sharp reduction in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. It is to this port on the Red Sea that Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline runs, allowing crude to be transported from fields in the eastern part of the kingdom bypassing Hormuz.

The pipeline's capacity reaches about 7 million barrels per day. In previous months, Saudi Arabia maximized pumping along this route to compensate for problems with traditional exports through the Persian Gulf.

However, in September the oil infrastructure along this route came under a series of drone attacks. As a result, operations on the route were disrupted, and the volumes of oil that Saudi Arabia could ship through the Red Sea were significantly reduced.

Earlier, Macron said that the security of Yanbu became one of the areas of negotiations between Paris and Riyadh amid the energy crisis. French authorities see restoring stable operation of the Saudi route as one of the ways to increase oil supply on the global market and ease pressure on fuel prices in Europe.

France already has significant military forces in the region. After the escalation in the Middle East, Paris reinforced its presence with aircraft, ships and air defense systems to protect partners in the Persian Gulf and ensure the security of sea routes.

Protecting Yanbu is especially important for Europe. After the effective restriction of supplies through Hormuz and attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure, global prices for oil and petroleum products rose sharply, and European countries began to actively seek alternative sources of supply.

Based on materials from: Bloomberg, Le Monde, Elysée Palace