Overview
- Drone strikes in mid-September damaged pumping stations on the 1,200 km East–West line and took Yanbu loadings out of service, cutting a key route from Saudi oilfields to the Red Sea.
- Saudi Aramco is carrying out emergency bypass work that it expects will restore roughly half of the pipeline’s capacity within days and complete repairs in about six weeks.
- To replace lost barrels, Riyadh has rerouted exports through Persian Gulf ports and arranged ship‑to‑ship transfers off Oman, and it has told some European term customers they will receive no crude in October.
- Yanbu inventories are at near‑historic lows and oil prices have stayed elevated near $100 a barrel, with higher shipping and insurance costs raising the risk of further delivery delays.
- The pipeline normally moved about 2.8 million bpd before the conflict and also supplies about 2 million bpd to Red Sea refineries, so prolonged disruption could tighten regional fuel supplies and keep markets sensitive to further attacks or repair setbacks.