A significant portion of Saudi Arabia's East-West crude pipeline is expected to remain offline for three to five weeks following extensive damage from a drone strike. While partial operations may continue during the repair period, the exact volume of crude that can still flow through the line remains uncertain, with neither the Saudi government nor Saudi Aramco yet confirming a definitive timeline for full restoration.
The attack, which occurred on September 10, struck multiple pipeline facilities in the Riyadh and Medina regions, causing injuries and damaging a key pumping station. Regional officials familiar with the repair assessments indicate that core infrastructure will require roughly three to five weeks to fix, while some other damaged equipment could take even longer to restore. One official noted that the pipeline might resume partial throughput capacity during the maintenance window, though no specific flow rates were provided. Saudi Arabia's Energy Ministry shut down the pipeline as a security precaution and dispatched emergency and technical teams to evaluate the damage.
Saudi authorities have stated that the drones were launched from Iraqi territory. In response to a request from Iraq's Prime Minister, Riyadh has temporarily refrained from retaliatory action to allow the Iraqi government time to investigate and prevent similar attacks, while reserving the right to take measures to defend its own infrastructure.
The 1,200-kilometer East-West pipeline connects Saudi Arabia's eastern oil fields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, with a maximum design capacity of 7 million barrels per day. In the first quarter of this year, Saudi Aramco increased operations to maximum capacity to mitigate the impact of potential shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. Energy research firm Rystad Energy estimates that the pipeline has been transporting approximately 2.6 million to 4 million barrels per day since late August. A complete shutdown would remove a substantial volume of export supply from the market through its usual route, and while Saudi Arabia could adjust domestic inventories, export terminals, and shipping routes, redirecting additional crude to Persian Gulf exports faces both security and transport capacity constraints given the current restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Red Sea export route is also under simultaneous pressure. Crude delivered to Yanbu is typically loaded onto tankers and sent north through the Suez Canal or via Egyptian pipeline infrastructure to the Mediterranean, a route that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz but extends voyage times and raises transport costs for some Asian customers. Recent escalations by Yemen's Houthi forces in and around the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have further heightened uncertainty for export traffic from Yanbu. Rystad Energy assesses that if the pipeline remains closed for about a month, global markets could likely absorb the shock through inventories and rerouted crude flows; however, a longer outage would necessitate broader adjustments to international crude trade routes. Fueled by heightened supply concerns, international oil prices rose more than 2% on Monday, pushing Brent crude to around $109 per barrel.
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