Saudi East-West Oil Pipeline Hit Again at Khurais, Source Says, as Reports Clash Over Flows
AFP source says pumping stopped after attack; Reuters and Bloomberg say oil still flowing
3 min read
File photo: Khurais Oil Processing Facility, Saudi Arabia, seen by satellite in 2017. Photo: Planet Labs, Inc., CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Conflicting reports emerged on Monday over whether oil is still moving through Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, the kingdom's main route for sending crude around the Strait of Hormuz, after a source said a pumping station had been hit.
What the AFP source said
A source working in Saudi Arabia's energy sector told AFP that the line had been attacked again on Sunday and that pumping had stopped.
"The East-West pipeline was attacked again yesterday," the source told AFP. "A pumping station east of Riyadh in Khurais. It wasn't targeted before. There was big damage and the pipeline stopped again."
Saudi authorities had not publicly confirmed any damage at the time of writing.
The report came a day after Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis said they had targeted sites in Saudi Arabia belonging to state oil giant Aramco, including infrastructure in Khurais. Those claims have not been independently verified.
Other sources say oil is still flowing
Reuters, citing a source, reported on Monday that oil flows through the pipeline had not been interrupted. Bloomberg also reported that the link was operating normally, citing people familiar with the matter.
According to Bloomberg, oil prices jumped as much as 1.2% after the AFP report and then eased once reports of normal operations came out. Brent crude has been trading around $100 a barrel.
Bloomberg reported that Aramco had brought supplies through the seven-million-barrel-a-day pipeline back up to more than 80% of capacity by late last week, after the line was attacked by drones launched from Iraq in September. According to commodity-tracking platform Kpler, flows were halted from September 11 to 22.
Why the pipeline matters
The East-West pipeline runs about 1,200km (700 miles) from Saudi Arabia's main eastern oil fields to the Yanbu terminal on the Red Sea. With Iran trying to control traffic through Hormuz, it has become one of the most important outlets for Gulf crude.
Kpler said over the weekend that Middle East oil exports excluding Iran had climbed back above pre-war levels, helped largely by pipelines. "Forty percent now bypass Hormuz, and most crude crossing the strait changes tankers offshore," Kpler said, adding that most of the oil flowed through Saudi and United Arab Emirates pipelines.
Any lasting shutdown would put that recovery at risk. It would also come as fighting escalates in Yemen, where the Saudi-backed government has launched a new offensive against the Houthis near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea gateway that tankers leaving Yanbu depend on.
The pipeline has been targeted several times since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran at the end of February.
