HOUSTON — Fixing the damage done by the attack on the Saudi oil processing plant may be the easy part. The hard part will be calming energy markets, where oil prices have jumped faster than at any time in over a decade.

The attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq plant, which accounts for 5 percent of global oil supplies, and a nearby facility took 5.7 million barrels a day of production off line for at least a few days. It also highlighted the vulnerability of the sprawling processing plants, pipelines and refineries of the Persian Gulf.

“The psyche has been altered,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for Oil Price Information Service. “Now you have the thought, ‘What if the other shoe drops and we have a wider conflict?’”

For years, American and Saudi security analysts have worried about the Abqaiq processing center, which removes sulfur impurities and makes crude oil less volatile so it can be safely exported on tankers. Without the plant, much of the oil that Saudi Arabia produces at its giant Ghawar and Shaybah oil fields would have nowhere to go.