Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s biggest oil producers, on Friday said it had shut down a vital oil pipeline as a precautionary measure following a drone attack from Iraqi territory.
The infrastructure, known as the East-West pipeline, is key to Saudi Arabia’s ability to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz — the Persian Gulf waterway that Iran blockaded after the U.S.-Israeli attack in late February, throttling global oil exports.
The targeting of the East-West pipeline showed that even alternatives to the strait can be disrupted if Iran and its proxies expand their attacks, exposing another vulnerability in efforts to restore the flow of oil to world markets and bring down energy prices.
Here is what you need to know about the pipeline.
What is the East-West pipeline?
Built in the 1980s — when the Iran-Iraq war was similarly squeezing oil exports from the Persian Gulf — the 1,201-kilometer (746-mile) pipeline crosses the Arabian Peninsula to the Saudi port of Yanbu on the Red Sea.
Earlier this summer, Yasir O. Al-Rumayyan, the chairman of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, said engineers had expanded the pipeline’s capacity to carry up to seven million barrels per day, nearly 30 percent more than before the war.
“We had a similar situation back in the ’80s where the Strait of Hormuz was threatened to be blockaded by the Iranian regime,” Mr. Al-Rumayyan said in June. “It was decided since then that we will have a pipeline from east to west and if it wasn’t for this pipeline, we wouldn’t have a lifeline for us as a Saudi economy.”
Still, Saudi Arabia’s oil exports fell last month to 3.2 million barrels a day, the lowest level in at least 13 years, according to data from Kpler, a maritime information company.
How important is it to the global oil supply?
The pipeline has allowed Saudi Arabia to mitigate the impact of the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz by keeping oil flowing out through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, at the southern entry to the Red Sea.
But that backup route has come under threat as well.
In Yemen, Iran-backed Houthi militants have seized new territory and tried to cut off the Red Sea to Saudi shipping by declaring a blockade and by firing on Saudi vessels. In the past week, the Houthis have taken over more coastal territory near the strait, including the Perim Island in the Red Sea and the port of Mokha, further threatening Saudi vessels carrying oil from the East-West pipeline down the Red Sea to global markets.
Saudi Arabia can also export its oil north out of the Red Sea though a pipeline near the Suez Canal, in Egypt. But that route through the Mediterranean is costlier and adds weeks to the voyage to Asia, where most of the kingdom’s customers are.
Over the past several weeks, a growing number of oil tankers have also been avoiding the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz with U.S. military guidance. The number is still a fraction of those that transited the waterway before the war, though, according to shipping trackers — meaning the pipeline is still important.
Who attacked the pipeline?
No group has officially claimed the drone attack on the East-West pipeline, although on Saturday, President Trump said Iran was “probably” behind the assault. Iran has not commented on the claim.
Saudi officials have said the drone came from Iraq, which has been a hotbed for well-armed militias under Tehran’s sway that the Iraqi government has struggled to bring under control. On Saturday, the office of Iraq’s prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, said he had agreed to conduct a joint investigation with Iran into drone launches along the Iraqi border.
Analysts have said that a broadening U.S. economic campaign against Iran was likely to lead it to escalate attacks in the region and try to tighten its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.
“Saudi Arabia had the workaround, at least partially, through this East-West pipeline,,” said Joey Hood, a former senior State Department official. “Iran saw that and said — we’re getting the economic stranglehold around our necks, so we’ve got to do something.”
“Seeing the Iranians doing such bold and outlandish things seems to signal that the economic strangulation is beginning to work,” he added.
How might Saudi Arabia react?
The attack on Friday is the first against the pipeline since it was targeted in April. At the time, Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry said a drone had hit a pumping station and led to the loss of nearly 700,000 barrels per day of pumping capacity. While the pipeline was quickly brought back online, it exposed a fundamental vulnerability for Saudi Arabia’s oil routes as it seeks to bypass the volatility of attacks in the Strait of Hormuz.
Following that attack, and after months of restraint, Saudi Arabia joined the United States in bombing Iran-linked Iraqi militias in July, targeting logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq.
This time, Saudi Arabia has “chosen not to respond at this stage and to support the efforts of the Iraqi government” in preventing future attacks from its territory, according to the Saudi foreign ministry.
But Mr. Hood, the former diplomat, said Iran was likely to continue its attacks, which could ultimately force Gulf states like Saudi Arabia to take a more aggressive stance.
“This conflict is continuing to widen,” he said. “The Gulf countries have shown extraordinary restraint, but I don’t think that lasts forever.”
Lisa Friedman contributed reporting.
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