U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said a coalition of countries is needed to address Iran's "malign activity."
"It is a time for a coalition of tame and thoughtful energy-producing and energy-consuming countries to come together and put a stop to Iran's malign activity," Perry told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Monday.
Perry's comments follow a series of drone attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities that caused the largest disruption to the world's oil supply in history.
Over the weekend, an oil-processing facility at Abqaiq and the nearby Khurais oil field were attacked, knocking out production of 5.7 million barrels of oil a day, or more than half of Saudi Arabia's global daily exports. The strikes caused Brent crude futures and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures to surge.
Although it is not confirmed that Iran was responsible for the drone attacks, the Saudi-led military coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi movement said Monday that the assault on Saudi oil plants was carried out with Iranian weapons and did not originate from Yemen, according to preliminary findings. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Monday that the attacks on Aramco were a "reciprocal response" to the aggression against Yemen.
President Donald Trump suggested Iran played a role in the attacks, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for the drone strikes, saying in a tweet Saturday that the Islamic Republic launched an "unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply." Perry's comments to CNBC echoed a similar assumption about Iran's involvement.
"It's time for us to be globally spending a message that Iran cannot be allowed to act in the way they are acting. They are attacking oil supplies to try to disrupt the global economy," Perry said.
"I think there will be a coalition effort, both our friends in the Middle East that understand having a crazy neighbor is a real problem," he added.
futures, the international benchmark, settled up 14.6% to $69.02 per barrel on Monday. futures settled up 14.8% to $62.9.
After the attack, Trump authorized the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the nation's emergency oil reserve. Perry said it's too soon to say whether the U.S. will need to use its emergency crude reserves to offset the surge in oil prices.
