Saudi Pipeline Outage to Last Weeks, Threatening 4 Million Barrels a Day
Updated
Updated · POLITICO · Sep 15
Saudi Pipeline Outage to Last Weeks, Threatening 4 Million Barrels a Day
3 articles · Updated · POLITICO · Sep 15
Summary
Saudi Arabia’s damaged East-West pipeline will stay offline for weeks after drone strikes, extending a disruption to a key route that normally carries about 4 million barrels per day.
A monthlong shutdown would be a “large disruption,” Rystad Energy said, because crude bound for Asia would take longer and cost more to deliver; a longer outage could force a major reshuffling of global oil flows.
The hit also compounds pressure from the Houthis’ attacks on Saudi shipping in the northern Red Sea, narrowing alternatives for moving crude to customers.
In Yemen, the same fighting is accelerating a broader humanitarian crisis: more than 500 people were killed in the last week, nearly 94,000 displaced, and about 200 schools turned into shelters.
The renewed offensive threatens to unravel the relative calm since the 2022 truce and deepen a war that has already killed more than 150,000 people.