Saudi Arabia Planning To Bypass Hormuz With Massive Expansion Of Oil Pipeline

Saudi Arabia plans to lift the East-West pipeline’s capacity to 10 million barrels per day within two to three years, Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said at the WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh, as the kingdom works to keep its crude moving around a closed Strait of Hormuz.

The line has become Riyadh’s main export route. Saudi Arabia has used it to reroute around 4 million barrels per day to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, Zawya reported. Drone attacks that Saudi Arabia blamed on Iraqi militias forced the kingdom to shut the pipeline on September 11.

Flows were back to 5.8 million bpd by October 6, the minister said, still 1.2 million short of the line’s current 7 million maximum. ZeroHedge earlier tracked the pipeline hitting a record 7 million bpd.

As OilPrice.com notes further, the 740-mile-long pipeline, also known as Petroline, has a maximum capacity of 7 million bpd at present.

Despite the ongoing conflict and disruptions, Saudi Arabia plans to add 3 million bpd to the East-West pipeline, which became a lifeline for Saudi oil exports after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Thanks to the pipeline, Saudi Arabia managed to divert most of its crude oil exports away from the choked Strait of Hormuz and ships increasingly larger volumes via the Yanbu port on the Red Sea.

The route to bypass Hormuz is not without risks, either. The Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen vowed in July to halt Saudi shipments through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which is the shortest route for Saudi oil supply from Yanbu to reach Asian markets.

Still, Prince Abdulaziz on Monday touted the energy resilience of the Kingdom, telling the WPC Energy Congress that energy resilience “must also be measured by the ability to maintain, repair, reroute, substitute and recover. Above all, it must be measured by the ability to continue delivering under pressure.”

Saudi Aramco’s chief executive officer, Amin Nasser, said at the same event that “In alignment with the Ministry of Energy, we are studying additional crude export routes, and working on expanding overseas storage.”

Aramco’s top executive added that the company is “also focused on mitigating risks and limiting damage, using frontier technologies to inspect facilities and accelerate restoration.”