A drone strike disabled a pump station on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline earlier this month, so the kingdom ramped up traffic through the Strait of Hormuz instead of relying on its Red Sea outlets. That pivot picked up speed after the attack, which took place two weeks ago, reversing months in which Saudi Arabia largely held back on Persian Gulf exports even as neighbors shipped more.
Fresh EU Copernicus imagery compiled by Bloomberg shows the main Persian Gulf terminal as busy as any time since the war with Iran began. Three images over four days capture multiple tankers alongside, with some appearing on consecutive days. Were every vessel visible in the latest image to sail by Thursday, average throughput would exceed 5 million barrels a day. Saudi Aramco declined to comment.
Drawing on ship signals and satellite data, Bloomberg pegs Saudi exports at 5.28 million barrels a day to this point in September, well above August when heightened risks at both eastern and western facilities snarled loadings. Before the conflict, roughly 90% of Saudi crude departed through the Persian Gulf, yet in April and May that portion dropped to zero.
To offset the Hormuz squeeze, Riyadh leaned on the East-West line to push barrels to the Red Sea, keeping more than half of pre-war exports moving and outpacing peers without that option, like Iraq and Kuwait. The pipeline, which can move up to 7 million barrels a day, came to a standstill after the strike crippled a pump station. Work to bypass the damaged facility appears to have restored flows, and shipments from Yanbu resumed after almost two weeks offline.
Ship tracking compiled by Bloomberg indicates that from Sept. 10 through Sept. 21 no tankers left the Red Sea export terminals. The picture is murky because many ships had their AIS transponders off for much of that stretch, and there were no clear satellite shots of the Red Sea loading sites from Sept. 10 to Sept. 20.
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With Red Sea flows paused, at least 18 tankers have gathered off Egypt's Sidi Kerir. The port lies at the Mediterranean terminus of the Sumed pipeline that connects to the Red Sea, a pathway that gained prominence following a July warning by Yemen-based Houthi rebels that they would attack ships making calls at Saudi ports.
With the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait effectively out of play, buyers in South Korea, Japan, China and elsewhere in Asia lifted cargoes in the Mediterranean and shipped them around Africa. As at Yanbu, Sidi Kerir loadings paused shortly after the East-West pipeline went down, and Bloomberg's tracking suggests those shipments should resume a few days after Yanbu's restart. Bloomberg's September export calculations reflect the first 23 days of the month, while its Sidi Kerir chart covers the first 13 days.
Saudi Arabia is the heavyweight in seaborne oil, so when it switches routes or suffers a pipeline outage, supplies tighten and prices react. The war has already choked off chunks of crude and fuel, lifting Brent to about $105 and pushing diesel up even more. Since the middle of last week, traders say the kingdom has sold almost 100 million barrels for October and November delivery to Asian customers via Hormuz, a sign of strong demand and a rapid move to keep the region supplied.
Bottom line: watch the flow data, not just the headlines. Where Saudi barrels load and how quickly they sail is a real-time read on supply, freight costs and, ultimately, what you pay at the pump or for anything moved by truck.
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