RIYADH, September 15 — The East–West Pipeline, the Saudi artery that lets the kingdom’s crude reach the sea without threading the Strait of Hormuz, is shut down, and U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright says the interruption should last only days. Wright told CNBC the closure is a brief interruption rather than a prolonged outage.
The specific cause has not been detailed in that interview, and the network did not specify a duration beyond “days.” Think of it like a bypass road around the world’s most congested and most contested shipping lane. The East–West Pipeline, also known as Petroline, runs roughly 1,200 kilometers — about 746 miles — from the Abqaiq oil processing facility in eastern Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
It has a stated capacity of about 5 million barrels per day, though it typically operates below that level. That routing matters because it lets Saudi crude bypass the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman through which about one-fifth of global oil consumption passes. The strait is bordered by Iran and Oman.
The pipeline also supplies domestic refineries and petrochemical plants. The line was built in the 1980s with an initial capacity of 1.85 million barrels per day, then expanded in the 1990s to its current capacity.
Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company and the world’s largest oil company by production, operates it.
Why markets watch this line
Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil exporter and a leading member of OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, founded in 1960. The kingdom holds the world’s second-largest proven crude oil reserves, after Venezuela, and has produced roughly 9 million barrels per day in recent years. Any disruption to Saudi export infrastructure can move global prices, which are benchmarked by Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate.
In recent years Brent has traded in a range of roughly $70 to $90 per barrel, though prices fluctuate with supply and demand. The market has a recent memory of how bad this can get.
In September 2019, an attack on Aramco’s Abqaiq facility temporarily knocked out about 5.7 million barrels per day of production — about 5% of global supply. Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed the attack, while the U.S. and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran, which denied involvement. Brent crude jumped nearly 15% in a single day.
Wright’s comments, by contrast, point to a shorter-term issue. His remarks are likely aimed at reassuring markets, and oil markets are sensitive enough that even brief outages can cause price volatility.
Saudi Arabia has been diversifying its export routes and expanding its energy infrastructure under its Vision 2030 plan, launched in 2016 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The plan aims to reduce the kingdom’s dependence on oil, though oil remains central to its economy. For now, the key facts are these: the East–West Pipeline is closed, the U.S. Energy Secretary says the closure will last days, and the cause has not been detailed.
The story is developing, and further details may emerge.
