Both Ends of the Workaround
Saudi Arabia survived a closed Strait of Hormuz by moving its oil across the desert and out through the Red Sea. In the space of four days that workaround was struck at the pipe and at the strait, by attackers operating from two different countries.
> Saudi Arabia survived a closed Strait of Hormuz by moving its oil across the desert and out through the Red Sea. In the space of four days that workaround was struck at the pipe and at the strait, by attackers operating from two different countries. Which of those losses still matters in October is the one thing the record cannot yet tell you.
On Thursday morning several drones flew into Saudi Arabia from southern Iraq and hit the East-West Pipeline in the Riyadh and Medina regions. Satellites caught the smoke. By Friday the Energy Ministry had shut the line as a precaution and said further developments would be announced in due course.
That pipe has been the kingdom's quiet success in this war. It carries crude from the Gulf side to Yanbu on the Red Sea, and this spring Yanbu was exporting around four million barrels a day, about five times its pre-war rate.
On Friday, Houthi fighters reached Perim Island in the middle of Bab el-Mandeb after government forces pulled back. They took the port town of Dhubab and the Hanish islands the same day. Yemen's recognised government now holds no port on the Red Sea. The movement then declared navigation safe for every company except Saudi ones.
From the town facing Perim, the centre of the strait lies about sixteen kilometres away, which puts it inside the range of some Houthi artillery. Hormuz got an escorted lane hugging the Omani coast, and the narrower Bab el-Mandeb leaves little room to copy it. The far shore still belongs to Djibouti.
Before any of this, the Red Sea route was already smaller than its reputation. Yanbu's exports fell by half or more in August. The Houthis had declared an embargo on Saudi shipping in July, and Aramco also went back to loading inside the Gulf that month, so how much of the fall was forced and how much was chosen is still argued. More cargo went north toward Suez, and Egypt's Mediterranean outlet more than doubled its exports between June and August. For buyers in Asia that detour roughly doubles the voyage.
Riyadh asked Washington to strike and was offered help with targeting instead. Pakistan's defence minister and its foreign ministry gave conflicting answers on whether the defence pact Islamabad signed with the kingdom in August applies. Turkey condemned the attacks and stopped short of any military commitment. Saudi Arabia agreed to hold fire on Iraq at Baghdad's request, and Baghdad dismissed the commander of the province the drones came from.
The week reads two ways. The first puts the pipeline ahead of the strait. A shut pipe starves Yanbu of oil for every destination, Suez included, and it bites today. It is also the loss with a repair clock, because when an April strike cut the line to a fraction of its flow it was running at full capacity again within three days. The second reading treats the pipe as the easy half. Pumping stations get rebuilt, and no engineering crew hands back a coastline. The ban on Saudi ships now has guns in range of the shipping lane.
A precaution announced by the country that owns the pipe tells you what Riyadh decided. It says nothing yet about where the oil went. The figure that settles the argument is daily loadings at Yanbu since Friday, and nobody has published it. If tankers are filling there again by the end of the month while Saudi cargoes still avoid the strait, this was Perim's week. If Yanbu stays quiet, the drones from Iraq did more damage than the Houthis did.