Saudi Arabia says its East-West pipeline is moving oil at full capacity again after attacks knocked part of it out. The Ministry of Energy confirmed the restoration, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
The line, also known as Petroline, can handle roughly seven million barrels per day. Strikes had cut flows by around 700,000 barrels a day before repair crews finished.
The trouble started on 8 April. The Financial Times had earlier reported a drone strike on the facility that day, which landed in the middle of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran. Saudi Arabia has acknowledged that attacks it attributed to Iran killed one person and took out part of the kingdom’s oil production capacity. A pumping station along the pipeline was among the damage.
Why this route matters
Saudi Aramco owns the 1,200-kilometre pipeline. It runs from oil fields in the east to export terminals on the Red Sea, so crude loaded there never has to pass the Strait of Hormuz.
That bypass counts for a lot. Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest crude exporter and pumps a little more than 10 million barrels a day. Iran has effectively blocked the strait since hostilities began, and even with a ceasefire in place, it is not clear when the waterway will reopen.
Iran has hit infrastructure of US-aligned Gulf states more than once, in retaliation for the strikes the United States and Israel carried out on its territory in late February.
The pipeline itself dates to the 1980s. It was finished during the Iran-Iraq War as a strategic detour, built for exactly this scenario: oil exports kept moving if shipping in the Gulf was disrupted.
Sources
Sources
- Saudi Arabia Restores Major Alternative Oil Route
- Saudi oil pipeline attack: repairs may take weeks as… – India Today
