Saudi Arabia Suspends East-West Pipeline After Drone Attack

Saudi Arabia has suspended operations on its critical East-West oil pipeline, known as the Petroline, following a drone strike on September 10, 2026. The attack, which caused infrastructure damage and injuries in the Riyadh and Medina regions, has forced the kingdom to halt a vital conduit that had been essential for bypassing the largely closed Strait of Hormuz. Saudi authorities have traced the origin of the drones to Iraq's Maysan province, an area known for the presence of Iran-aligned armed groups.

The 1,200km pipeline, which has a maximum capacity of seven million barrels per day (bpd), had been operating at a reduced capacity of approximately two million bpd in August due to broader regional instability. However, in the months following the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran in February, Saudi Arabia had increased flows through the Petroline to between four and five million bpd to maintain export levels. Regional officials cited by The Associated Press indicate that the pipeline will remain largely out of service for several weeks to facilitate necessary repairs.

The closure of the Petroline arrives at a precarious moment for global energy markets, which are already grappling with a significant reduction in oil transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Industry estimates suggest that daily flows through the strait have dropped from 20 million bpd to between six and nine million bpd since the conflict began. While Saudi Arabia maintains limited buffer stocks at the Red Sea port of Yanbu and at Egyptian storage facilities in Ain Sukhna and Sidi Kerir, these reserves are only sufficient for a few days of exports.

Analysts at Gavekal Research have warned that a prolonged outage at Yanbu, which processes over one million bpd, would be disastrous for a global refining sector already operating under critical constraints. The International Energy Agency has reported that global oil supplies are on track to decline by 5.7 million bpd this year, and continued drawdowns of strategic reserves to offset these disruptions could push Brent crude prices toward $150 a barrel if inventories reach critical lows.