THERMAL ALERT: ARAMCO RAS TANURA, SAUDI ARABIA
SITE
• Aramco Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia, refinery (crude refinery)
• Owner-operator: Saudi Aramco
• 550 kbpd, the kingdom's largest refinery; Gulf coast at Ras Tanura, Eastern Province, beside the crude export terminal
• The same detection pixel also fired the adjacent Ras Tanura crude export terminal, about 2 km east; the two records are one physical event
DETECTION
• Aqua (MODIS), 2026-10-27 00:09 UTC: 1 hotspot, peak FRP 75.6 MW, confidence 100
• Single pass so far. The pixel sits 1.75 km east of the refinery center and 1.13 km from the export terminal center, on the complex's eastern side. Site baseline median is 3.0 MW, so this is 25.4x baseline; it is the only MODIS detection at the complex in 5 days, against routine flaring of 2 to 5 MW on VIIRS
• Timing: 5 minutes after the Civil Defense Eastern Province warning (00:04 UTC), inside the window in which the coalition says 3 ballistic missiles were intercepted
CORROBORATION
• X: the claim traces to one cluster resting on this same satellite pixel: man_600 at 02:34 UTC (unusual fire, began 3:09 AM, nine minutes after sirens; 3:09 AM local is 00:09 UTC, this detection), amplified by CocoPostel and by Hexagone Intel's post naming the refinery; Arabic posts repeat the same line. No ground photos, video, or local reporting from Ras Tanura itself
• Silent: Aramco and Saudi officials on the refinery specifically; tonight's wire reporting covers the interceptions and the all-clear and names no Ras Tanura impact. The prominent Ras Tanura fire stories in search results are from March 2026, a different incident
• Web: no news found yet for tonight
• Status: UNVERIFIED; cause unknown. Emergency flaring during the alert, interception debris, and an impact fire are each consistent with a single pixel; no damage extent is known
WHY IT MATTERS
• Ras Tanura is 550 kbpd of refining plus the kingdom's largest crude export terminal; a confirmed fire there is a supply event, which is why the call waits on a second pass or official word
• The next VIIRS passes decide persistence: a real blaze re-fires, a flare spike does not. The attached plume view is the most recent daytime scene (October 26), cloud over the coast; the detection was at night, so no plume is shown or claimed
Coordinates: 26.693, 50.0958
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